The Dream Eater
by Ihsan997
Summary: It was an idyllic farm town in Nagrand until the nightmares began. When the nightmares come to life, it's up to Yara and Kiul to round up friends and followers and catch the culprit behind the murders; though things are not always what they seem. Eight chapters.
1. The Scene

Kiul walked down the dusty road, following the local farmer the best he could. The man was smaller and walked faster, and it took some effort to keep up. Their hooves clopped as they hurried, ignoring the braying to the talbuk carrying their bags.

A soft breeze pushed the verdant grasses of west Nagrand like waves on the ocean that afternoon. There were few trees by the old country road, and it made for a beautiful sight under the blue sky with few clouds. Kiul had originally been from Nagrand on his own timeline's version of Draenor, just like his wife, Yaromira, though neither of them met until they crash landed on Azeroth. Their work with the Steamwheedle Cartel on this version of the planet was nostalgic for them both even though they knew they would eventually go back through the Dark Portal once the war effort against the Iron Horde had made some ground. Until then, they expected a nice trip of work they loved and weekends in pleasant little places like this one.

That is, until word of rather grisly murders in that end of Nagrand reached them.

"Thanks for coming again, friend," the wheat farmer huffed as the two men jogged. "It's difficult to get attention from the local authorities, seeing as how remote these parts are. I understand that it's a bit of a hassle for you to make it out this far."

"And I understand that your village is in need of help. That's what's most important," Kiul countered.

The farmer smiled as they continued down the dirt road, seeming reassured. It wasn't until the village came into view that they spoke again.

"So you say nobody wants to talk about the nightmares your whole village seems to be experiencing?" Kiul asked.

The farmer slowed down, creeping along the dirt road as though he wanted to delay their arrival. "That would be correct. Some people mention it, but once word spread that all the adults were experiencing it, we got scared. We hoped it would go away even when the first murder happened a week ago. But then two more happened, and what with that woodland sprouting up overnight..." The farmer's voice trailed off, and Kiul could tell that the mere conversation was difficult for him.

"Perhaps I should ask around to see what sort of nightmares the others are having, after I see the latest murder scene." The farmer just nodded. He had dodged questions about his own nightmares previously, and seemed grateful when Kiul didn't bring it up again. "This would be the fourth murder in a village of only seventy people, correct?"

"That is correct, sir."

"And the children haven't been experiencing these nightmares?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," the farmer replied, apparently more comfortable as they reached the village signpost. "Nothing that would seem strange for youngsters, anyway."

A few of the locals took notice from their porches and street corners as the two men and the mount walked through. Dressed in his Steamwheedle Cartel shipping uniform, Kiul only stood out slightly from the other civilians. Such a small village likely saw no regular postal services, especially from a consortium operating out of a different planet and from a different timeline, but all the same, the locals didn't appear particularly interested. They were all draenei of various ages, almost all of them local farmers or simple craftspeople save what appeared to be a forge used by only two blacksmith families. There didn't even appear to be any sort of manor for a noble family, and from what Kiul knew of the more isolated people of his homeland, these ones might essentially function autonomously. It wasn't the norm but it wasn't particularly strange, either, and for the most part such communities would be left to their own devices, settling their own internal disputes and paying no taxes to any outside authority. It was a beautiful, if quaint, way of life, and his heart felt a wistful tug knowing that in his own timeline, such communities had all been destroyed during the creation of Outland.

The farmer began speaking about the nature of the community itself, and Kiul just tuned him out while nodding and agreeing. He was too enamored by the lifestyle that had become such a distant memory; he felt as though he were walking through an open air museum. Shaking his head in disgust at a poster of Garrosh Hellscream being used as a dartboard by some teenagers, he muttered to himself under his breath about the Iron Horde. Kiul still didn't quite understand how the whole alternate timeline thing worked. Even his wife, who had spent two years at a mage's academy for preliminary studies she never finished, didn't quite comprehend the explanation given by their work contact representing the Kirin Tor on Draenor. If they stopped Hellscream, Gul'dan and the Shadow Council, would things change in their own timeline? Or would they stay the same?

As he passed by a burly local that almost looked like a long lost twin aside from the bigger nose and lazy eye, Kiul wondered if he would meet himself. For sure, others from Draenor - draenei and orcs alike - had met their earlier selves by now, he thought while passing by a glass maker's shop. The universe hadn't imploded, the space time continuum hadn't been disrupted and a black hole hadn't opened up in the middle of the planet. So what would it be like? A part of him almost didn't want to meet his old self. It might be painful, to see what was lost, and to answer tough questions about what might happen. Yes, he would never have met Yaromira had things not happened the way they did, and he wouldn't trade his new life for his old one. But that didn't mean that remembering wasn't painful, and it didn't mean he would find it easy to explain to his old self that he would have to watch his neighborhood be swallowed as the land beneath their feet cracked into a raging chasm...

"And that's the village water hole," the farmer said while pointing to a rather large, efficient looking well.

They had already passed through to the other side of the village via the main road, and the small forest that supposedly hadn't existed just a few days before. The man had been trying to convince anyone he found at the brand new Nagrand Alliance garrison of what had happened, but nobody would listen; the adventurers from Azeroth were all focused on stopping the Iron Horde and the locals who had taken up residence at the garrison didn't view the villagers in a serious light. Illiterate farmers, the man's settlement had been branded, and Kiul felt rather upset that the humble man's pleas had been ignored. Just a few hours later and there they were, staring at the blood stains in a ditch just off the side of the dirt road.

"This is where the fourth murder happened last night," the farmer explained sadly. "A young man, had a bright future ahead of him. But he always had this phobia of scissors - he didn't like to use them because he was always afraid of accidentally getting his fingers caught in them." Glancing off to the horizon for a moment, the farmer's face became grim as he held his hands behind his back. "The wounds were from scissors. He had hundreds of them, everywhere."

Kiul pinched his nose at the blood. He'd been a pacifist for much of his life, and although he had to defend himself a few times shipping parcels and merchandise, he'd only seen blood a few times despite being a few thousand years old. Even when the planet had been ripped asunder, he watched the carnage from afar, having been one of the refugees that made it to safety relatively unscathed. He wasn't used to violence. But as he thought of the idealic village thrust into literal living nightmares, he feared he might have to face it once again to help these people.

"You mentioned back at the garrison that your people found nothing when you entered the woods as a group?" he asked the farmer.

"Nothing at all. It isn't a particularly large place. It's a dense wood, but we didn't find anything of note."

"Did you go during the day or the night?" Kiul asked while squinting his eyes, trying to spy what he could of the normal, healthy looking trees just barely in view.

"Oh, we went during the day! Nobody could be convinced to go in there at night...do you...think whatever is attacking us might be there only at night?" the farmer asked nervously, already glancing over both shoulders.

Kiul pursed his lips and took a moment before answering. "It seems like the next thing to try. And if we leave right now, I very well might get a team of people assembled tonight."

Eyes widened, the farmer looked speechless. "Oh...sir, I know I went in there asking for help, but I...guess I didn't know what to expect. We don't have much-"

"Don't worry about any sort of payment," Kiul chortled.

"But why? This could be dangerous work just to help a village...well, nobody ever really cares about us out here."

"And that's exactly why I think I can have a group of people here tonight." Kiul turned to the man and nodded toward the village with his head, leading the talbuk back. "The group of people I'm thinking about would jump at the opportunity to help for free."


	2. The Posse

It was already late afternoon as Yaromira saw her husband approaching over the horizon. She had been waiting for at least half an hour for him to return, slightly perturbed that he had just up and left. Working with the Steamwheedle Cartel shipping service often required random overtime hours and they needed all hands on the proverbial deck. In addition to that, they were still technically working during war time - Iron Horde patrols roamed the grasslands of Nagrand, and unplanned forays into local villages to inspect whatever superstition they had been convinced was haunting them could put him in danger.

She dusted off her cartel uniform as she stood up to meet him, and he self consciously dusted off his, thinking she was trying to send him a message.

"No, it's just mine," she said before kissing him on the cheek and inspecting the talbuk. "Where have you been?"

He continued looking ahead as he tried to hide his smile, and she knew that he knew that she knew. "Nobody told you?"

"Something about a farm village being haunted?" she asked rhetorically as they approached the main gate. Instead of walking inside, they stopped at the post office tent where they worked, and he removed the saddle bags from the talbuk as they spoke.

"The farm village has been the site of four murders in the past week," he said while setting the mount loose to graze. He set the bag down in the corner of the tent - all their supplies were communal - and sat on a bench. She didn't join him, watching him avoid her gaze as he spoke. "There are only seventy people in that village, and they're autonomous, so they don't even have a constable."

Yaromira folded her arms as she listened, examining her husband as he spoke. She watched how he leaned forward on his knees and clasped his hands together, obviously in deep thought about what he had seen but also concerned for her reaction. In spite of the fact that he was twice her age - she was only a thousand years and some centuries old herself - he tended to defer to her on serious decisions affecting their life. She'd already worked her way up to middle management in the cartel after only four years of service, and her analytical skills were not to be taken for granted.

Sighing both in resignation and sympathy, she tried to probe his motivation. "There are less fortunate people everywhere here, Kiul. And in the end, you know what will ultimately happen to our planet on any timeline."

"I know," he sighed wistfully.

"We can't afford to get bogged down helping every village in need."

This time, he made eye contact. "It's not every village, Yara. It's one village, and they're right here, where we'll be working for the next two months. For better or for worse, we're a part of this community, at least temporarily."

Kiul had such a look of sincerity in his eyes that, even with her calculating nature, Yaromira had difficulty dismissing. She pursed her lips and thought hard before answering. "Perhaps we could negotiate for concessions to build a post road through their village if we helped them. It might make the excursion more appealing to the higher ups."

"They offered to pay what they had for any help offered," he said in a more energetic voice. "I'm sure they'd grant whatever the cartel asked."

"Okay. Okay. Look, if this is going to happen, you need to be the one to inform Manny back at Ashran. The daily portal will be open for half an hour later on tonight."

"I was hoping we could be at that village by tonight," he protested weakly. She could tell he was taking this as some sort of a charity case, putting doubly the pressure on her both to participate in helping people in need and helping her husband's heart strings from being tugged at. But Yaromira was not one to give in to pressure.

"Find a way," she stated, switching from wife to boss. "If you want this to work, find a solution so that one way or another, Manny knows by tonight. You handle that, and I'll see if I can gather whoever is available from the gang plus any garrison followers around to come with."

His eyes lit up, seemingly encouraged by her taking the ordeal as seriously as she would any other professional task. "Vegnus will be here all night; if I get to drafting a report for Manny now, I can have it ready for Vegnus to present to him for as long as the portal is open."

Involuntarily smiling, Yaromira backed up to give him space to stand. "Now we're talking business. You do that, and we could be looking at further expansion for operations on this timeline. Win-win situations are always favored by upper management."

Since they were already in the tent, Kiul only had to move two tables down to get some stationary from the attendant and start to furiously write away as he raced to explain what was obviously some sort of a personal project for him. She loved his kindness above all else, but knew that it needed to be tempered with sound reason. Yaromira exited the tent, knowing that his hopes had gotten up. She'd need to hustle to round up enough people for what she assumed was a simple murder case at the hands of a local drunk; neither of them, nor most of the other Steamwheedle employees at the burgeoning garrison, were qualified for a possible confrontation; she would have to rely on a combination of whatever caravan guards were off duty and whichever Alliance or neutral adventurers happened to be around.

She didn't have to search long to find the latter. As she clopped around behind the safety of the garrison ramparts but outside the walls proper, Yaromira veered around the circular garrison, away from the entrance as she passed a few wandering laborers and travelers and approached the makeshift campsite beneath some tall bushes. There, squatting on a rock and cleaning his teeth with what looked like a tree root, was a large jungle troll with clipped tusks and hide the color of the sky. As she neared, he seemed to notice her but focused on picking at his teeth until she was closer.

"Nice ta finally see ya, Yara," Khujand hummed in his slightly accented Common. He didn't rise to greet her or even look at her, but appeared happy to see her.

"You too, Khuj," she greeted while eyeing his pointy ginger root. "Interesting tool you have there," she joked, unprepared for what came next.

::HAAAAA::

"Ew! What! Khujand!" Yaromira stammered as he opened his mouth and breathed on her face. Were any other man not her husband to lean that closely to her she likely would have yelped for help, but knowing him it was just his harmless lack of social skills. "Why would you..." She sniffed the air in front of her a few times, noticing his innocent grin shaped around shark like teeth. "Your breath smells...surprisingly wonderful," she mumbled, not realizing she had said it out loud.

"Tha ginger helps fight plaque," he claimed as he continued using the sharpened root as a toothpick.

"I'll keep that in mind," she chuckled while ignoring the gawks from her fellow Alliance members (she retained her ID card from the faction despite devoting her life to work for a neutral organization). "Listen, I think we might need your help with something."

"I'm ready!" the giddy giant said just a little too eagerly as he flicked his natural tooth cleaner into the bushes and stood up.

"Are you sure you don't want to hear what it is first?"

"Naw, psh, ya know I'm ready ta help out with anythin' ya guys need."

She grinned wide at how easy it had been. In truth, she had expected him to be the easiest to convince, but it was still a good, heartening start. He was big, weird enough to be intimidating and could serve as a good meat shield in case any of the locals did turn out to be the one behind the violent attacks.

"I'm glad to hear that; it's for a good cause," she explained as he bunched his belongings further up inside the bush and collected his armaments in a travel bag. "There have been some murders at a nearby village, and they need an outside group to investigate."

"Sounds serious," he mumbled while adjusting his rather grisly belt made from skulls he had collected from Iron Horde soldiers.

They were strung closely enough together to protect his stomach from damage, but also made bringing him around Alliance garrisons a bit difficult. Though he was still stationed out of Frostfire Ridge, he was a neutral garrison follower in all but name, similar to the more well known Nat Pagle or even apparently non-mythical Leeroy Jenkins. Regardless, Khujand's appearance often led to assumptions being made, and the mail armor made from animal bone he wore around his neck, jaw and shoulders, coupled with the wooden mask he insisted on wearing, made for a rather disturbing sight.

On that particular afternoon, Yaromira got a taste of it first had once again. She didn't even notice the green swirls behind them until she heard the roar.

"Gah!" the unsuspecting troll grunted as he stumbled forward a step, though didn't actually fall down, from the large bear clinging to his back.

Startled beyond all senses, Yaromira yelped and dove behind a tree, looking around the area for help. The bear roared a second time as Khujand reached around his back and yanked the ursine that was probably even heavier than he was off of him by the paw, earning a number of cuts to his exposed skin in the process. Before it could sink its teeth in, he had grabbed it by the snout and forced it to the ground, putting it into a wrestling hold.

"What the fel!" Yaromira cried out as she tried to figure out whether to throw rocks at the pinned bear or call for help and hope the guards didn't side against her friend.

In another cloud of green swirls, the bear transformed into a well armored but slowly asphyxiating night elf man. Not quite as large or hairy in his normal form, he looked like he would pop under the suddenly grumpy troll's weight.

"Khujand, he's yielded, let him up so he can explain himself," Yaromira urged, not entirely sure if he'd listen given the half a dozen slashes on his back and upper arms.

"Guards!" the amber eyed man gasped at two approaching guards. "We're being invaded by the Horde!"

"That's not true!" she protested voiciferously to the two guards rather than the druid.

"What's going on here?" the first guard, who thankfully recognized her friend, asked.

"My companion here is a guest of Steamwheedle and has permission to camp within the ramparts of the garrison as a neutral follower," she explained as calmly as she could. "This man here attacked him from behind."

"He tried to bite you!" the night elf protested, his dark blue hair ruffled up as a three fingered hand held a firm grip on the back of his head and neck.

"He was sharing his breath freshener with me," she mumbled shyly, hoping that her cheeks wouldn't darken at the awkward phrasing.

The two guards both looked like dealing with such a dispute was the last thing either of them wanted, and the second one actually turned away and pretended to inspect a group of merchants who were leaving town anyway rather than entering. The first had a weary look in his eyes as he examined the bleeding troll sitting on the dazed elf, and took his time before coming to any sort of a decision.

"Shadow Hunter Koudjan, get off of him. Guardian Druid Galeheart, heal him. Both of you shake hands," the armored guard commanded reluctantly, not even bothering to keep his hand on the pommel of his mace.

While the troll had no issue rising from his interlocutor, the elf didn't seem particularly happy as he stood and carefully sealed the cuts he had slashed on the back of whom he had thought of as an enemy. The guard looked as sheepish as the two men as they stood and stared each other down, though when Yaromira literally grabbed Khujand's big hand and guided it over to the night elf she had known as Kirandros Galeheart from earlier conversations, the sentries appeared satisfied and left after delivering verbal warnings.

After an awkward silence, she brought out the manager voice again.

"Look, Kirandros, this man is a friend to me and our operation, and he left all factional ideologies long ago," she explained to the frowning, deep purple elf as he adjusted the pieces of his armor that had been pulled loose. "He even speaks your people's language. This was a misunderstanding but there's no reason for either of you to dwell on it."

The elf continued frowning at the troll, but his expression softened without actually becoming apologetic. "If you say so, Yara," he said cautiously.

"He's also coming along with us on a small quest, if you're interested in helping," she suggested, knowing that Kirandros, also being a garrison follower, would be itching for work.

Long eyebrows curved over amber eyes as his interest was obviously picqued. He stood ill at ease despite Khujand having turned his back to them, but spoke freely nonetheless. "I would be interested in helping; it's why I came to this planet. I assume this is something dangerous? Iron Horde, perhaps?"

"Not exactly," she said with a shake of her head. "This one is possibly dangerous, but a little more local."

"I am listening."

"There's a nearby farming village that has seen a few murders in the last week, and the inhabitants are spooked by it. Nobody is going to help them, and we're planning on heading there within the hour." She motioned for him to follow her inside the garrison, noticing how his eyes lit up at the opportunity.

"If there are oppressed people in need, it is my duty to be there!" Kirandros beamed heartily, seeming to have forgotten the tustle he had just been involved in.

Before they walked through the main gates, she turned back to Khujand, who was stretching his freshly healed back. "Do me a favor, will you? Try to find Meatball and that other person you met back at Vol'jin's Pride."

Her Darkspear friend nodded, and Yaromira ignored the confounded look on Kirandros' face as they entered the garrison. She could tell that there would be a measure of friction on this trip. Then again, being area manager in a goblin cartel with predominantly male employees, it was nothing she didn't face normally anyway.

* * *

The group sat quietly around the circle of chairs for a moment, trying to take Yaromira's story in. At first, she had been concerned that they wouldn't take it seriously; Kirandros had reacted so positively, but she had known him for less than a week and didn't know if he was the overenthusiastic type or not. The Brents, a worgen couple consisting of healer Elizra and heavy infantryman Tyron, listened intently. They had relocated to the Nagrand garrison along with the most recent cartel operations despite not being employees. Work had taken them all over Draenor, and once they met the group in Talador, they became constant companions and trusted allies. Cecilia, a longtime Steamwheedle employee in their security division, leaned against a support beam in the musty tavern that had been built in only three weeks to service the troops and craftspeople stationed there, already suited up for an adventure. She brought millennia of experience to the table - she was nearly five times the age of Kiul, who himself was already millennia old - but understood the hierarchy and would only lead during such expeditions if asked. They were a good, strong group to have, and the ernest with which they listened and asked questions gave Yaromira hope that her husband's efforts to help the villagers wouldn't be wasted.

Though not the best strategist, Tyron always concerned himself with proper arrangements for such trips. He and Elizra reportedly had some trouble before meeting the group on the road to Exarch's Refuge, although they never liked to talk about it. He rested his hand on his long lower jaw until Yaromira finished the story, raising a finger to politely indicate that he wished to speak.

"These woods that reportedly sprouted up there a few days ago, at this village - do we have confirmation from outsiders that they weren't there before? I mean, that this story is true?" he inquired softly.

"Well, they seem like honest folk," she started, trying to find an excuse.

"No, I didn't mean to imply that they're lying."

"I understand that."

"But we need to know if this isn't just some village superstition. We don't really know these people, and desperation, hunger - they drive people to take drastic measures. Are they trying to swindle some exoplanetary travelers into some sort of...well, I don't know what," he mumbled toward the end.

"No, I get what you're saying. And no, we don't have outside confirmation that any of this is true - we're accepting it based on Kiul's insistence," she replied apologetically. The two worgen looked to be deep in thought, but not necessarily resistant to the idea of helping. "Look at it this way: our organization is working hard to chart this territory. In the event that the story is hogwash, we'll still have scouted a new area for potential customers, and we'll have confirmed that stories from that village aren't to be taken seriously."

"Will the cartel consider such a foray to be official work duty?" Cecilia asked in a low voice, barely audible to here despite her dark, towering figure.

"Kiul is having Vegnus deliver a report to Manny in Ashran as we speak." Cecilia nodded in response to Yaromira's answer, ignoring the subtle look Kirandros shot her. Her eyes were dimmer than those of others of her kind, allowing her to almost conceal them under the shadow cast by her helmet. When nobody else spoke, Yaromira stood in an effort to get them a little more energized in anticipation of what she expected to be a minor quest. "So who's coming?"

They all stood in unison, save Cecilia who had already been standing. Tyron, who had been wearing plainclothes, left to his room at the inn after nodding, presumably to suit up.

"You know we're with you, Yara," Elizra laughed softly while putting her arm around the draenei's shoulder. "We're glad to help both our friend and people in need, whether it be from Hellscream's forces or something else."

Yaromira smiled, ignoring the two elves as Kirandros - who was actually slightly shorter than Cecilia, a rather imposing women by their standards - shared a few words in their language without response. As she led Elizra toward the stairs, she noticed Kiul rushing into the tavern with Vegnus, the young dwarf functioning as area co-manager, both of them winded and rushed.

"Yara, I only have a few minutes before I have te leave, but I just wanted te inform ye that Kiul briefed me on everything and I'll get the message te Manny alright," the short-bearded dwarf huffed as he tucked the shirt of his shipping employee's uniform back into his pants.

"Good, that's good news, and really, thank you so much," she beamed while he tried to balance a dozen different documents on a broken clipboard. "I know it's short notice."

"Aw, don't mention it, ye know it's for a good cause," he chortled, already moving back out of the tavern. "Listen, I already see them opening the portal, I have te get in line. I'll be back tenight, which I assume means I'll see ye the next morning."

"That's correct Vegnus, but take it easy! Don't..." Her voice trailed off as the busy co-manager already ran off, possibly worried about the long wait times and crowded lines that had formed at most portals on Draenor due to a stunning lack of proper portal specialists. "Okay then!" she laughed along with Elizra. "I suppose you and Tyron need to get a few things ready?"

"We'll be down here in about ten minutes, don't worry," the worgen reassured her. "I'm looking forward to this, actually. We've made these parts so safe that there's hardly anybody to heal anymore. A little excursion feels like just what we need."

"I just hope there isn't too much excitement," Yaromira replied while wandering over to her waiting husband. Elizra flashed her a cheeky grin while disappearing upstairs, and she turned to find Kiul with a big smile on his face. "Good luck rounding up more followers?" she asked.

"Mhm! We found Meatball, and Khujand flagged down that lady he knows from Talador. Plus, we found another neutral type of follower." Kiul raised his eyebrows involuntarily at the last part, and Yaromira began to wonder if there was some oddball or joke follower he had brought along like the cantankerous gnome wearing a pointy hat whom he'd found at Karabor.

"What?" she asked suspiciously, resisting slightly when he tried to guide her outside. "Who is it this time?"

He leaned close as though he were about to tell her some great secret before he spoke. "She's a pandaren death knight."

The thought took a moment to register before Yaromira quite understood what was so strange about it. "But wait...death knights were created by the Lich King in Northrend, back on Azeroth," she surmised out loud, her eyes darting back and forth as she numbered the past few years in her head. "Pandaria wasn't rediscovered until a few years after that. How can one of their people have been abducted by the Scourge?"

"I don't know, Yara, I really don't know, but this person is incredible," he beamed while finally leading her back outside into the daylight. "She says so little that I felt it rude to pry, but she's dead serious - pun intended - and insisted that she help whatever way she could."

As they walked outside, she saw the rest of the group had been assembled, and to her surprise the guards had allowed the jungle troll to enter the garrison for once. One of them stood nearby, watching him as though he would start pillaging the townhouses any moment, though he didn't seem to mind. Standing next to him, glowing blue eyes, black plate armor, frozen sword and all, was a bonafide pandaren death knight. She stood almost motionless between Khujand and Meatball, the brawling gnoll everyone in the cartel loved so much, and by the standards of her people she almost looked emaciated.

It was only when Yaromira heard the clinking of Cecilia's heavy armor behind her that she noticed the other neutral follower. Taller than herself, perhaps even taller than Kiul, stood another woman of her race donning the garb of a shadow priest. The two elves sauntered up to the rest of the group just as Kiul began running through introductions.

"Alright everybody, this is Gravewalker Gie!" he chirped while motioning to the death knight, who didn't even nod in acknowledgement. "Gie, this is my lovely wife Yara, and our two Kaldorei friends are Guardian Druid Galeheart and Huntress Hearthglen."

When Yaromira glanced aside, she could already see Cecilia burning daggers at Khujand and the shadow priest, though as was the habit of elves, her glare was so subtle that not all there may have noticed. Given that she had been dating Khujand for more than half a year - they spontaneously started telling everyone they were engaged a few months ago - Yaromira could already tell what bothered her so much.

"So, um, Kiul...I see we have one of our own here, perhaps a visitor from Shadowmoon?" Yaromira suggested despite being sure of who the woman actually was.

"No, not quite. This is Soulbinder Tulaani. She's Khujand's friend from Talador!" Kiul beamed, not noticing that the words might further irritate one of the people they were relying on to protect them. "Tulaani, I believe you know everyone's name now. We're glad to have you with us, and Gie as well."

"I am always ready to help the less fortunate," Tulaani said congenially. Her tone appeared to irritate the dark elven warrior even more, and Yaromira could tell that Kirandros had noticed.

"Okay then! I already booked mounts for everybody," Kiul addressed to the group while looking at Yaromira, and she knew his excitement was due to succeeding in organizing the party so quickly. He had clearly taken helping these farmers seriously. "Well, I guess we just need to wait for the Brents and we'll be ready to go, right?" he asked her, hope shining in his eyes.

Her heart warmed at his enthusiasm over doing a good deed despite her lingering apprehension stemming from Tyron's good questions earlier, Yaromira relented. "That would be correct. Thank you for coming, everybody," she said as she turned to the whole group. "I trust we all know the story by now, yes?"

"Aye."

"That we do."

"READY!" barked the short gnoll who had been silent until then.

Everyone got a laugh along with Meatball despite the fact that he was using his serious voice, and Yaromira shrugged it off. "We'll ride out once our last two members arrive. It isn't that long by mount, and once there we can interview locals to find out the exact nature of the problem. I'll talk to village elders, the rest of you, please do your best to find out what you can." She straightened up and adjusted her posture when she was sure everyone had quieted down. "This is a good cause, and we're going to help good people. No matter what happens, we stick together, and hopefully nothing will go wrong."

They waited for the worgen couple to join the group. The final round of introductions only took a few minutes before everyone had stocked up on supplies, used the latrines and prepared themselves. Across the rolling fields and toward the sunset, the group of ten rode, and Yaromira felt confident that whatever was happening at that small village, they would get to the bottom of it.


	3. The Village

The sun hung low in the sky as Kiul dismounted from his talbuk, leading the others to the public area used as a makeshift stable for mounts. The village saw so few visitors that there was likely no need for a full time stablemaster, and the assortment of ten riding animals - talbuks, elekks and wolves - crowded the area somewhat. A farmer resting on his porch behind the village fence recognized Kiul and waved him down.

"Welcome back, friend!" the man beamed.

"Nice to be back," Kiul replied as his nine companions chatted quietly in front of the village. "I hope we aren't taking up too much space here."

"We aren't expecting any other visitors, no. And regardless, we're glad that you brought help," the man chuckled as he descended from his porch with a farm girl that looked like she might be his daughter, based on their uniquely colored silver hair. "We can watch them if you'd like, you know, make sure they graze well and don't wander off."

"Oh, we're flattered, though we don't want to be a burden-"

"Nonsense. You're helping us out quite a bit; it's the least we can do." The farmer spoke a little more softly as he approached Kiul, facing away from the group. "It's bad, honestly. You'll learn more from talking to the others here than me alone, but...the murders aren't the whole story."

Kiul's eyes narrowed as the two men watched the two wolves dig up gophers for snacks. "What do you mean?"

"It's the terror," the farmer explained with a long, drawn out sigh. "In a city, a murder would be tragic but it wouldn't disrupt daily life. We're a small community here, and thank the Light, we've been untouched by disasters such as drought or bandits for many decades. But now, many of us can't sleep at night. We're afraid to go outside and afraid of our dreams." Shuddering, the man rolled his shoulders and tried to work the anxiety out. "Like I said, perhaps you could talk to the others. Then you can get a more well rounded idea of what's going on."

"Are the people expecting us?" Kiul asked.

"Word spreads pretty fast here," the man said while nodding. His daughter appeared to be having fun helping the wolves track down more gophers and other varmints, and the rest of the group had just about finished unpacking whatever items or gear they would need. "We like to think of ourselves as an open people. You could more or less walk up to anybody and talk to them, though not everybody will be as up front about what we've been going through. It's unpleasant."

"I can only imagine," Kiul hummed sympathetically. "We'll get started then, at least with the questions for now. We will likely enter the woods we were told of after dusk, since that hasn't been tried yet."

At the mention of the supposedly spontaneously generated woodland, the farmer promptly left Kiul without a word or even a look and joined his daughter, ignoring the person he had literally just been speaking to. Unable to see the man's face to gauge his feelings, Kiul assumed it was a sensitive topic and left the farmer and daughter to their own devices.

Yaromira stood at the front of the group, a concerned look on her face. "What's wrong?" Kiul asked her as he approached.

"Our comrades in tune with the spirit world sense something," she replied while motioning toward Gie, Tulaani and Khujand.

The shadow priestess and shadow hunter spoke to one another in low voices, speaking in earnest, though none of the others noticed save Cecilia, who still seemed bothered by her fiancé having a female friend. When Kiul went to them with his wife, they already seemed to have come to some sort of agreement.

"Something is wrong here," Tulaani said before anyone else spoke. Her voice was low enough such that even Kiul could barely hear her despite the four of them forming a small circle. "We haven't even entered the village yet and we can feel it."

"What do you mean by 'it' exactly?" Kiul whispered.

"The people're fine here," Khujand whispered back, for once managing to appropriately measure the volume of his voice. "They're definitely disturbed, but we don't sense any evil comin' from them. We can tell already: whoever committed these murders, they ain't from this village."

"But they're here," Tulaani added in tandem, not missing a beat. "It can't be local, but the problem is here, and it's demonic. We felt it at least twenty yards back, from the road. That's a problem. Such evil normally wouldn't be measurable from so far away."

"So what does that mean?" Yaromira asked. Her expression was controlled but Kiul knew his wife well, and by her defensive body language he could tell that unlike him, she hadn't believed the villagers' tales until now.

"We ain't gonna be sure till we take a look inside. We don't need ta talk ta tha locals; tha rest of ya can handle that. We just need ta walk around, feel tha aura here, maybe observe tha conversations ya all have with tha locals from afar." The jungle troll shifted uncomfortably and shared a look with the single draenei female as though they both heard something, and Kiul felt markedly uncomfortable. "This ain't no ordinary village superstition."

After some time, Yaromira took the lead and beckoned the rest of the group over. "Okay everybody, here is what we're going to do. I need Elizra to come with me. There is no official government here, but the village has elders and we need to interview them."

"Of course."

"Tulaani, Khujand and Gie, I need the three of you to pretend to be taking a stroll around. Just observe things, see what you notice but act nonchalant."

"I can go with them," Cecilia interjected while moving between Khujand and Tulaani. She held a stoic, blank look but Kiul knew her well enough to know she was jealous of how well Tulaani got along with Khujand. He also knew Khujand well enough to laugh at the prospect of the man's gaze ever possibly straying, which made the otherwise tense exchange somewhat humorous.

"Cici, we need the three who have experience in death magic to observe naturally," Yaromira protested. "It's really important that the rest of you speak to the locals directly."

"What about life magic?" Kirandros asked while unsuccessfully trying to find enough space to stand next to Cecilia.

"It will be indispensable if we run into any trouble, but for the purposes of getting to the bottom of this, it's the opposite of what would be needed to detect anything unusual," Tulaani stated dryly.

Cecilia pursed her lips and gave the unsuspecting shadow priestess a slightly piercing look before relenting. "As you wish," she whispered to Yaromira.

"Good, good, then. Cici, Kirandros, Tyron and of course Kiul, I'll need all of you to speak to the adults who know some Common and find out what you can. Farm people on our planet are generally open, but keep in mind that Common is an alien language here so not everybody will understand it well. Some of the older people may not know any words at all, so Kiul will need to translate," she warned. "Meatball, we all know you're good with children. See what you can figure out from the young people here."

"I LOVE KIDS AND KIDS LOVE ME," the psychotic looking gnoll cackled. Kiul could never quite relax around Meatball, yet somehow his claim always happened to be one hundred percent accurate: the short, furry man was a magnet for happy, bouncing children, and as a babysitter he was surprisingly competent according to rumors.

"So we all know our assignments, correct?" Yaromira asked. When everybody confirmed, she continued. "It's almost dusk now. Let's take an hour and a half to speak to the locals and then meet back here. We'll run one last check on the mounts before deciding what to do. Let's move out!"

Kiul waited for the others to amble away, standing next to Tyron as he watched Meatball strut beside a group of children playing kickball who immediately started imitating him. Yaromira and Elizra made their way to a communal longhouse their people traditionally used for celebrations and meetings, greeting a basket weaving family along the way. Tulaani and Khujand murmured to one another under their breath as Gie followed, and Kirandros continued to banter in elf language as he and Cecilia joined a group of locals playing dominoes, despite her ignoring him to stare at her fiancé. Once the rest had moved on, Kiul turned to Tyron as they began walking, too.

"I've got a bad feeling," the worgen warrior announced quietly.

"Remind you of anything you've seen before?"

Tyron nodded and looked down for a moment, not noticing the group of shepherds that gave the wolf man odd stares as they passed a few houses. "Yes, actually. This reminds me the time I was sent on a mission to the Plaguelands."

"You were sent to a haunted house, I take it?" Kiul asked quietly.

"A castle, actually. The Argent Dawn eventually took it over and cleansed the place, but not before my party ended up stranded and spent the night huddled in a room there." Tyron, who was just as scary looking as any ghost, quivered for a split second at the memory. "Suffice to say that I've seen people act like this before. I don't know about all this magic business, but something is definitely wrong."

Humming in affirmation that he had at least heard the anecdote (even though he couldn't imagine what it would have been like), Kiul led them over to a middle class, middle aged couple that made eye contact. As the two of them approached, the man and his wife looked relieved despite not knowing them, and the husband leaned forward to open the short gate of their yard.

"Do you folks need to rest for a moment?" the husband said slowly in heavily accented Common, and the wife dusted off two chairs in their front yard.

"We certainly woudn't mind," Kiul replied as he and Tyron sat down. The couple looked happy but awkward, like they didn't quite know what to say or how to start saying it, and Kiul took the lead, enunciating his words the best he could. "This is quite a picturesque settlement you all have here."

Both halves of the couple smiled, and although there was a sincerity there it did seem forced. Almost forcing himself to relax, the husband spoke on their behalf. "We're quite proud of the little community we've built up," he said, and his wife's eyes constantly darted around the narrow alleyways between the village houses on their little side street off the main dirt road. "Most of us prefer the simple life, and a farming village like this is probably the best place to find it."

"I can see that, definitely." Kiul glanced at Tyron, who appeared perfectly comfortable but didn't say anything, and Kiul figured out that the responsibility for speaking would likely fall mostly to himself. "Although we have heard of some troubles around here. Some people have been hurt, as we're to understand it?" he asked the man euphemistically.

The husband and wife didn't cease their smiling, though the wife stood up slowly without excusing herself and walked over to a tulip garden the family had been cultivating in one side of the yard. Pretending like it didn't happen, the husband waited a few seconds before he spoke.

"Yes...you could say some people have been hurt."

"Murder doesn't sound normal for such a quiet place like this," Kiul said sympathetically, but the man only nodded as though he wanted Kiul to continue pressing on. "Do you know the way that the victims met their end?"

"Like the nightmares."

"These are the nightmares the adults of the village have been experiencing, I take it?" Kiul asked again, only receiving a nod in response again. "When did it start?"

Sighing deeply as the farmer near the front fence of the village had, the husband glanced quickly at his wife, who tilted her head to listen to the conversation but didn't look back. Reluctantly, the man opened up a little. "It started weeks ago, but not all at once. Certain people - just a small number - started having nightmares, but it took a while for word to spread. Most people just write it off as a bad night and never talk about it. When a larger number of people began experiencing it, then the talk started, but mostly as jokes about somebody contaminating the water hole."

"And then the nightmares continued?" Kiul asked when the man paused for a few seconds.

"Erm, yes, they didn't stop. And the people thought it was some sort of a bad omen. Then the first murder occured a week ago, and we started locking our doors at night." The man stared down at his hooves, disappointed. "This is a peaceful community. We never locked our doors before."

Fascinated by the discussion, Kiul jumped in as he saw Tyron move to speak. The topic was obviously difficult for the man to discuss, and Kiul feared that two people interrogating him might overwhelm him. "Sir, I understand that this may be difficult, but can you describe what happened."

"Yes...yes, I can," he replied, taking some time to compose himself before continuing. "One of our farmhands was born in in the southeast of the region; they have hornets there, living in the wooded areas. He grew up near the woods and always had this fear of hornets."

"Spheksophobia," Tyron stated, falling silent afterward.

"Right, spekafervia. So anyway, his nightmares were always about the hornets - he claimed he had never been stung, but was always paranoid about it. And - you know, we don't have hornets in these parts - that's how we found him."

"Killed by hornets?" Kiul asked not suspiciously so much as in simple confusion.

"Everywhere. He had the welts everywhere. His wife said he had fallen asleep next to her, and when she woke up alone in the middle of the night she assumed he had gone to the latrine. When he wasn't there the next morning, she went outside to find a group of people causing a commotion, and it was around his body." The man's voice hitched, but he quickly took control of himself again. "They have two children, orphans now. His wife is too feeble to work the fields herself."

Kiul shared a prayer in their native language and even Tyron formed some sort of symbol using a motion with his right hand. When the moment passed, Kiul started up what he felt could be the end of the conversation. "And the others...they passed in the same manner?"

"Yes, that's correct. All of them had nightmares of their worst fears, and then died that way."

The man's body language formed a sort of square as he gripped the underside of his chair with his hands and squeezed his arms into himself. His wife seemed to be inspecting every last clump of dirt in their tulip garden, taking forever to work her way through. Sensing their discomfort, Kiul stood to leave and Tyron opened the fence gate.

"We are going to find a solution to all this," Kiul said confidently, feeling a purposeful surge he couldn't quite explain. "I promise you that."

"Thank you for your time," Tyron added as they closed the gate behind them, and the husband and wife continued on in their activities, not even looking up. The two of them walked to a different small beaten path off the main dirt road and turned a corner, slowing down between two village houses and dodging the weed growing from underneath the the structures before the worgen spoke in earnest. "This is a community of disturbed people. Something isn't right, and they're aware of it."

"I think that makes it worse for them. They know that this isn't normal." As they left the alleyway for another small row of houses, Kiul spied a group of young women who had been chatting but quickly stopped when they saw the two visitors. "Come along. We could probably speak to a few more groups before meeting up with the others."

* * *

Kiul had actually spent just over an hour and a half interviewing villagers with Tyron by the time they had worked their way in a circle around the village. Everybody seemed to repeat the same story: the nightmares started gradually a few weeks before but didn't become noticed until they persisted. They were all of the phobias of the adults, and the handful who had died all died along the lines of what they had described to other members of the community.

Tyron concerned himself more with their demeanor, allowing Kiul to do the talking while the worgen observed. He insisted that while most of the inhabitants actively enjoyed speaking about their problems to the outsiders, they all appeared conflicted while doing so. Mixed in with their eagerness was also apprehension and fear, as though merely mentioning the problems would visit misfortune upon them. Kiul insisted that the rural folk of his race were more superstitious than city folk as with all races of the worlds, but their emotional state had been duly noted.

By the time they reached the front of the village again, they only found part of the group. Yaromira and Elizra, who had met with village elders, chatted quietly while Cecilia and Kirandros, who had also interviewed villagers, stood next to them silently, and the female night elf appeared to be in a bad mood. Kiul noticed Meatball approaching from behind him, and he had the specific insane grin that his friends understood to be his concerned look on his face.

When they all converged, his wife already seemed to expect a report.

"Any news?" she asked him as Elizra and Tyron whispered to one another next to them.

"Well, the locals all say the same thing: the nightmares started gradually and didn't cause anyone to notice until they persisted," he explained loudly enough so that the whole group could hear. "They were all of phobias, and all the victims died the way they had described their nightmares to others."

"That's exactly the same as what we were told," Kirandros offered from behind them. "Did you hear anything about the woods?"

"Yes, actually. They all claim it sprouted up some time in the past few days, but that they took a group through during the daytime and found nothing," Kiul said.

"That's exactly what the elders told us," added Elizra. "They took a whole group through there one afternoon and took note that the woods are so dense that they couldn't see out once they entered, but that the place seemed almost a little too small compared to how it looks from afar."

"Like they were able to walk all the way through a little too quickly?" Kiul suggested.

"Yes, that's how they put it."

Yaromira turned to Meatball, who waited patiently as the others spoke. "Meatball, what sort of information were you able to learn from the children?"

"THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT," he cackled worriedly, "NO UNUSUAL REPORTS AT ALL. WHICH IS UNUSUAL."

"Yes, one would expect for them at least to notice," Elizra answered in confusion.

"In a community like this, the adults might shield the children from such things the best they can," Yaromira countered as everyone formed a sort of semi-circle near their mounts. "Tulaani, Gie and Khujand should be here any minute now; we'll see what they were able to pick up."

Long eyebrows arching, Kirandros appeared a bit indignant. "I hardly see how trusting those who specialize in death magic can help," he huffed while looking to his fellow elf for approval. "I mean, one of them uses voodoo, for Goddess' sake."

Stoic as ever, Cecilia didn't even bother looking at him when she replied. "That's my fiancé," she retorted dryly. "And voodoo is a combination of life and death magic together, technically."

The druid's amber eyes grew as wide as saucers, and he whispered a question to her in their language that went unanswered. Just then, the three mediums in question returned, Tulaani and Khujand looking a bit pensive. True to her condition, Gie displayed no reaction but the look in her eyes was less distant than before, as though she were focusing on the world in front of her rather than the world in her head. Once they arrived, Kiul could sense the worry emanating from them, even the death knight.

"Any news?" Yaromira asked the late arrivals.

Glancing at the others for permission to speak on their behalf, Tulaani wasted no time getting to the point. "This place is cursed," she started, resting one cheek in the palm of her hand. "It's recent and it isn't strong yet, but it's definitely cursed. If left alone, a small village like this would eventually be lost."

"What's the nature of this curse?" Kiul asked hurriedly, unable to restrain a sense of duty to these people that not even he could explain.

"It's unique," the shadow priestess replied to the nods of her two compatriots. "From what I can tell, the source of it is like some combination of several different schools of magic plus something the originator added of their own creation. It isn't of a high level of skill, but it's so different that tracing it isn't easy." A few of the others looked like they wanted to say something, but they stopped when she opened her mouth to continue. "The people haven't been cursed directly. The nightmares, as far as we can tell, are being caused by the source indirectly - whoever it is, is in no rush with the evil they're doing."

"And the woods?" Yaromira asked quickly. "Did you sense anything there?"

Speaking in her haunting voice, Gie tried to lower her volume as much as possible. "Yes. The source is there. Only traces lie in the village. We can't solve this problem unless we enter the woods."

"You're absolutely sure about that?" Yaromira asked not in fear but, as Kiul could tell, in her neverending attempts to understand all she could about a situation before tackling it head on.

"Not possible," Gie repeated. "This starts in the woods. It ends in the woods."

When a moment of silence enveloped the group, all eyes fell to Yaromira. Although this wasn't exactly a matter of shipping, she was still the highest ranking official at the local Steamwheedle operation. Everyone there was either an employee or a garrison follower picked up by them - contractors, as she referred to them - and they all saw her as the authority. She slid a hand along one of her horns, and Kiul recognized the look she had when she was about to make a decision she felt slightly unsure about.

But before she could share it with the group, the screaming at the other end of the village started.


	4. The Creatures

Yaromira raced to the other end of the village, ignoring her husband's cries for her to wait. The sound of a young woman screaming had disrupted their planning session, and the only thing on her mind at that moment was rushing to the aid of those villagers. How ironic that Kiul had been the one who insisted on helping these people so much, despite there being no tangible benefit in it for them, while Yaromira herself had been the cold, objective skeptic regarding their story. As the village homes whizzed by, all that was on her mind was the fate of the four people murdered at the small farming village during the past week. She would not let there be a fifth.

The sun had only set a few minutes before, and many of the scared villagers were still milling about on their porches, watching the train of colorful visitors as they bolted down the main dirt road. Cecilia and Tyron, by far the fastest people in the group, overtook Yaromira and slightly blocked her view of the uproar with their large frames. Their suits of heavy metal armor clinked loudly as they both tossed stealth aside and barreled into whatever lied ahead, stopping so abruptly at the line of cowering villagers that Yaromira bumped into Cecilia and fell backward into Kiul's arms.

"Oomph!" she yelped just as her husband caught her.

So engrossed was Cecilia that she didn't even turn around, having been unmoved by the impact. The others soon caught up and nudged the locals aside defensively, and Yaromira caught sight of the distraught young woman being carried away by several other people.

"That's it!" she cried out in the native language of the draenei. "That was my nightmare! Since I was a child!" Her sobs were deep as she buried her face in her palms, not paying attention to the attempts of the other villagers to tell her that it wasn't going to happen. "I used to imagine them in my closet at night!"

Finally pushing her way to the front, Yaromira caught sight of what had caused the ruckus just as it dropped out of sight into the darkness of dusk. A tiny figure the height of a dwarf but much skinner hobbled away, and she could tell from its silhouette that it was a deformed, malshaped humanoid of some kind. Obviously scared off by all the pitchforks, machetes and torches that the farmers were wielding, the naked creature had fled snd Yaromira felt uplifted by the locals' efforts to stand up to whatever had been harassing them.

Gie happened to be standing next to Yaromira, and she looked to the death knight's flickering blue eyes for guidance. "Undead?" the draenei asked. "Demons?"

Her face expressionless as always, Gie nonetheless radiated a sense of disgust and determination combined. Whether out of simple habit or because she still needed oxygen, the relatively thin pandaren took a long breath before answering in a low voice. "No. It is neither. I've never sensed a presence like that before."

Ironically, Yaromira actually huddled closer to a death knight in fear of something else. "Do you think it's powerful?"

"No," Gie answered quickly with a shake of her head. "It is not powerful. But it is different. And that is just as problematic."

"And it's not the source," Tulaani added. "It's only a symptom. It's definitely not the source." She looked to Khujand for a moment, and they conferred silently until Tulaani finally noticed the stare she had been receiving from Cecilia. "We think it could be similar to the hornets they spoke to Kiul about earlier."

Once the young woman had finally calmed down, Yaromira left her friends to do the job of group ambassador, addressing her in their native tongue. "Ma'am, you're safe here. We are not going to let anything happen to you. Not you, and not anyone else."

The villagers clutched their sharp farming tools tightly. Some looked frightened, others looked angry. A few looked lost.

Still slumped on the ground, the woman's tears soaked her dirt stained dress, and she made no effort to stand up as others knelt around her. "I saw them again…in my dreams. They're always twisted and faceless…they weren't real. I was just a kid," she sniffled. The torches flickered in the young night, and Cecilia cupped a hand over her eyes as she watched the direction the creature had fled.

"It ran into the woods," the old school huntress - the type from before the Third War that wore plate and formed the front line of their people's army, Yaromira remembered - stated in her monotone serious voice. Cecilia's faded eyes gave her problems seeing in the daylight, but at night she could see more than a few miles on a flat plain - the cartel had tested her night sight more than once due to its value in the field. "It ducked around a bend in the dirt path once it entered."

"Dirt path?" blurted out one of the village elders, leaning on her staff. "We explored those woods just the other day, there is no dirt path. It's just densely grown trees all the way through!"

"My friend, I am looking at the path right now," Cecilia retorted politely but firmly as she continued looking into the darkness.

"I see it as well," Kirandros chimed in. "It's narrow, but it leads off right from the main road out of the village. It doesn't look as though any trees were cut to form it; it looks like an old, beaten path."

"This ain't an ordinary curse," Khujand muttered, only adding to the villagers' anxiety with his inappropriately timed observation.

"Then that's exactly where we're going!" Yaromira burst out, surprising even herself at the comment. Her husband beamed at the news despite the danger they were likely putting themselves in, and a number of the villagers relaxed a bit. She stood back up, facing the village elder leaning on a staff. "Keep your people here, and hold vigil all night; if this young lady is alone, she'll be gone."

The young woman cried a little more at the prospect, and a group of eight villagers led her back toward the communal long house, where another twenty of them were already congregating with whatever household items could be used as weapons. Yaromira could tell that the elder was many thousands of years old - possible even older than Cecilia - and had likely lived in many communities before founding this one. Regardless, she appeared unsure of what to do, and had likely spent those thousands of years in relatively peaceful communities.

"We've been too afraid to confront this issue directly until now," the elder explained sadly. "And I know some of our people will still hope that the problem will just go away."

"You know that will be the end of you all," Yaromira countered - not to the elder, but all the other draenei listening. "Ignoring the problem won't make it go away; rather, it will only fester. There is no sleeping for you all tonight. Don't let anybody stay in groups of less than five people, and avoid staying in homes on the outer edges of the village."

In spite of the fact that Yaromira was using her manager voice, the villagers still looked to their elder for guidance. They didn't have to look for long. "She's right. We might not be able to fight whatever this is, but we've waited for too long to at least take emergency precautions. Everybody, alert those who have already locked up for the night; we're congregating around the longhouse. We'll need at least ten volunteers patrolling those roads at all times."

"I can round them up now!" the cross-eyed, burly young man who looked sort of like Kiul but not really said while grabbing a gardening hoe and racing to the center of town with a buddy.

A large group from the villagers who had gathered at the edge of town moved back toward the longhouse with the crestfallen young woman who had a phobia of closet monsters. The elder remained behind for a moment with a contingent of five armed farmers, and despite the age disparity she looked to Yaromira as if asking what to do next.

"Our mounts are still at the front of the village," she instructed the much older woman. "They can help to alert you of any danger, and a few of them can even help defend your people from any potential threats."

"I'll take our young people here myself to lead them to the longhouse," the elder replied. "Are you sure you don't need us to send anyone with you?" There was an obvious reluctance in the woman's voice, as though she only offered out of politeness.

"What we need is for you all to remain safe; leave the dangerous work to us," Yaromira reassured the woman.

The last of the villagers were off, and once again all eyes were upon the area manager for a decision on what to do. Trying to take advantage of the ten millennia of experience standing silently with them, Yaromira turned to Cecilia.

"We know where the enemy is, and they know we're here; is there any point trying to sneak in to the woods?" she asked the dark elven warrior, already having a hint of the coming answer.

"Not if this place is cursed," Cecilia responded slowly. "They'll see us coming no matter what. Better to treat this as a proper pitched battle; we can sweep through and take out everything we see. This is no ordinary woodland."

"Then let's march!" Yaromira shouted, watching as her enthusiasm helped the others mentally prepare for a fight.

And so they marched toward the wood under the rays of a light generation spell Yaromira cast - one of the few she had mastered during her almost two years at the academy. As the most heavily armored, Cecilia and Tyron actually marched at the back rather than the front just in case a sneak attack occurred. Gie and Khujand led in the front; they could both fight at range in addition to being either heavily armored in Gie's case or just a medium armored meat shield in the case of Khujand. Lightly armored but just as capable as the other fighters, Kirandros and Meatball walked at the sides, forming a protective square around Yaromira, Kiul, Tulaani and Elizra in the middle. It was a solid formation, and they moved purposefully as the woods gradually came into view.

The woods appeared relatively small as the locals had described, perhaps too small to even be called a proper forest. Also as the locals had described, the verdant, non-twisted looking trees grew so densely together than it was nigh impossible to see in or out, and the air was as still and silent as their group. Nobody said a word as they entered, and although Yaromira felt no difference in the supposed aura of the place, she noticed that Tulaani began looking all around a lot more rapidly once they entered.

"There are trees, but nature is absent here," Cecilia whispered. Or possibly spoke; her normal voice wasn't that much different.

"What do you mean?" Yaromira asked intently, examining the altogether healthy looking trees.

"This is not a natural forest," Kirandros chimed in. "The balance is weak here; these may not even be actual trees."

The entire group took the words of the two elves seriously, but pressed on. Dimming her light spell, Yaromira felt like they were being watched, and not in the silly, cliche way. They all created surprisingly little noise as they marched, and even the three wearing plate managed to lighten their footsteps enough such that their armor stopped clinking.

Around a bend in the dirt path, Yaromira had a clear view of what had startled the young woman at the village.

Everyone froze, and at that point the path was still wide enough for them all to see at once, though up ahead they could tell that it narrowed considerably.

Standing there in the middle of the path through an almost impenetrable tree wall was the creature. It was the height of Vegnus but thinner, with skin that was pink like the humans of the northern part of the Eastern Kingdoms, but sickly. Naked and bow legged, it stood with its stooped back to them, and Yaromira immediately noticed that the skin of its right shoulder, pulled taut, was connected to the top of its hairless head. Most of the skin, in fact, was stretched and nearly transluscent, like someone who was so pale that all their veins and arteries were visible through the surface. Its limbs were of uneven weight and length, and as the creature just stood there, it didn't even appear to react to them.

Everyone remained stiff, but nobody made a noise, waiting for their leader to act first. Remembering that she was technically the leader of the ten person group, Yaromira called out.

"You! Hey you! You're not harrassing the good people of this village anymore!" she shouted.

No response.

"What is it?" Kiul whispered just loudly enough for the group to hear.

"Not undead," answered Gie. "It does not feel like a demon, either. It is something else."

Manipulating her light spell with her hand and a great amount of concentration, Yaromira directed the ball of light to float from the low canopy down in front of the creature, illuminating the vericose veins and gnotted warts on its skin. It still didn't react, even to the light.

Until Elizra shivered.

"I don't think we should disturb it, Yara," the worgen woman whispered nervously.

The creature stiffened, and so did the entire group as weapons were readied. Even though no sounds were created during the process, Yaromira could see how the rapid discoloration of the creature's skin ended once a sort of bluish color scheme set in. The skin grew rougher until the dark blue legs resembled denim, and the blackened feet shone like rubber as the figure increased in height. In utter shock, they all watched as a still malformed but very real looking human man turned around. His bone structure was elongated and twisted, and he couldn't walk so much as lurch as his long mustache twitched.

Before anyone could act, Elizra had already jumped on her husband, crying hysterically and preventing him from properly wielding his two handed sword.

"It's impossible! It's impossible! He died in jail!" Elizra sobbed, literally trying to climb up on Tyron's shoulders to get away.

"Elizra, let go!" he ordered in futility. "Just get off me and stand back!"

"Waaaant free candy, girliiieeee?" the disfigured figure creaked in a Gilnean accent.

The creature had barely ended its sentence by the time it had been cut into three frosted pieces. Gie's runesword had been swung so quickly that the creature didn't even have time to react, and the bloody parts gradually turned to ice on the ground.

"He's dead! He's supposed to be dead! This can't be happening!" Elizra continued to sob as Tyron gave up on trying to pull out his sword and simply hugged her as she nearly fell to the ground, behaving as though she were experiencing some sort of nervous breakdown.

Even though everyone else immediately drew their weapons and formed a circle around the unarmored members of the party, Yaromira still knelt on the opposite side of Elizra from the woman's husband, trying to provide her with as much privacy as possible. She quickly quieted down once Tyron began whispering to her, and all other members of the party save the worgen couple held still, on the alert for anything else. They were surprisingly organized, displaying none of the idle banter Yaromira's civilian employees would, all of them remaining silent unless they found it absolutely necessary to speak.

"There are more of them," Tulaani warned ominously. "They're among the trees."

"How many?" Yaromira asked urgently.

The three mediums all looked over their shoulders before answering in unison. "A lot."

"They aren't attacking, though," Kiul said nervously.

"They don't need to if they have us surrounded." Unlike the others, Cecilia didn't keep her voice down, and knowing her experience Yaromira figured it must be due to the fact that stealth was useless at that point. The group fell silent again as their most weathered veteran continued. "They could be observing or they could be mustering their forces. Either way, they appear to be comfortable in their current position."

Just then, Tyron interjected with another bombshell. "Guys...the path we took to get here is gone."

Thankfully, the party members mostly stayed focused on the direction in which they were defending as they stood in a circle. Yaromira took hold of Elizra so her husband could take a battle stance and point back from whence they came. The path had disappeared, simply coming to a dead end against the trees as though there had never been any sort of opening.

"What sorcery is this!" exclaimed Kirandros through clenched teeth, clearly irritated at the entire situation.

"THEY'RE HERE!" Meatball snickered in the lowest volume that was likely possible for the gnoll.

Before Yaromira could even see who 'they' were, green swirls once again filled the air as Kirandros shifted into bear form, growling lowly. Tulaani transformed into a partially transparent shadow and began singing a quiet hymn. Dark purple electricity gathered above her head, and that's when Yaromira, Elizra and Kiul all huddled together upon seeing them.

Dozens, literally dozens, of the malformed silhouettes approached between the trees. They were of varying shapes and sizes; a few of them were the size of a gnome, one looked like it was almost as tall as Khujand, but most were dwarven size or slightly larger. Yaromira felt her back stiffen in fear as she gripped more tightly to Elizra who reciprocated in kind when they heard them. High pitched, child-like wailing echoed through the trees; it was terrifying just to listen to, and Yaromira would have done almost anything at that point just to make the noise stop.

The others didn't wait long. Garnering a new wave of screeches from the lurching creatures, Tulaani sent multiple bolts of the purple electricity flying outward as she pressed a palm to her own temple in concentration. Multiple creatures dropped out of view into the underbrush while a few more began limping toward the group even faster, all pretense of a sneak attack thrown out the window. Not to be outdone, Gie reached out one of her gauntlets and made a crushing motion with her hand, sending chains literally made of ice leaping out of the ground and wrapping around a number of the creatures. They didn't struggle for long and appeared to die relatively easily, but as they fell more and more waves lurched toward the group, replacing those that had fallen.

"They're getting closer!" Elizra exclaimed frantically, visibly shaken by what Yaromira finally realized had been a phobia that had been sensed within her by the first creature.

The first wave of the creatures crashed into the group's defenses, and all was chaos.

Glaives, paws, swords and maces swung as the outer ring of party members fought off the mostly small creatures. The monsters were absolutely hideous, most of them completely deformed humanoids with misplaced eyes, mouths and limbs sprouting randomly from the twisted, bruised, stretched skin and a large number of the creatures had claws or jagged pieces of bone jutting out of their disfigured bodies that they used as weapons. Tulaani and Gie continued attacking as many as they could at range, while the others had to wait for the creatures to practically fall upon them.

Cecilia shouted something, perhaps some strategic order, but Yaromira couldn't hear it as one of the larger creatures fell dead in between Meatball and Tyron, knocking into Kiul who then bumped in to Elizra and Yaromira herself. Dozens of the creatures had fallen already, but the waves didn't stop as their attacks became more bold. Through the chaos, one of the creatures stood back and stared Yaromira down as its putrid skin crawled and transformed into that of another draenei female.

"It won't work on me!" she yelled at the creature without even realizing it.

Memories of a bad weekend in Shattrath almost two decades ago descended upon her as the repulsive, incorrectly proportioned draenei creature took the voice of a woman who had mugged Yaromira at knifepoint all those years ago. Her fingers elongated until they became like knives themselves, and the arm stretched out to reach for her.

Rage replaced fear as Yaromira felt the creature peeking inside of her head psychically, and her voice became strained and hoarse as she screamed her anger at it. "You're not her, you're just an ugly piece of trash that's about to get killed!" Her defiance was genuine, as was the physical pain it seemed to cause the creature.

Before Tyron could even cut it down with his sword, the fake draenei creature collapsed in on itself as though its ribcage spontaneously disappeared, folding like a discarded pair of pants on the ground. It took Yaromira only a second to figure out that she had been the cause.

"Don't be afraid!" she shouted to the others. "They aren't real; they can't turn into your fears if you don't let them!" That didn't prevent them from slashing at the group with their claws or swinging with blunt, club like limbs, and Yaromira reeled when she realized that there was an open gap in their defenses. "Where's Gie!?"

Looking all around, Yaromira couldn't see the death knight anywhere when she had been there just a few seconds before. Meatball was swinging his spiked mace furiously, taking out creatures large and small in midair effortlessly but also endlessly as they didn't stop coming. Khujand as well as Kirandros this time were both covered in many cuts all over as they used their bodies to block creatures from reaching Tulaani as the two large men continued cutting creatures in half left and right. The shadow priestess, for her part, focused entirely on her task as she greatly thinned the ranks of the creature swarm, making herself the primary target. She didn't even seem to notice all the aggro she had earned as Cecilia cut a creature in half just before it tackled the Soulbinder. Elizra made haste as she tried to heal those who had been hurt, nearly stumbling before Yaromira caught her as she rotated all around to see who needed help the most.

To Yaromira's dread, the smaller individuals among the monsters broke through the party's defensive wall, wreaking havoc as they slashed at the legs of the fighters among the group. Tulaani's incantation was interrupted as the tiny creatures tore at her robes, and Kiul ended up lifting them off of her and tossing them to the side.

"Don't let them separate the group!" Yaromira shouted just a few seconds too late as a group of the creatures made a mad dash right in between them all. They didn't even attack so much as they simply stampeded and tried their best to divide everyone, willingly allowing most of their ranks to be cut down in the process in order to push everyone in the group further away from each other.

The number of creatures seemed to have lessened, and their corpses melted into the dirt road after piling up knee high. The stench of their blood was nauseating, and she distinctly heard both the creatures and some of her party members slip and trip in the puddles of blood and corpses. It was only then that she heard the loud splash from behind her.

"He doesn't know how to swim!" Elizra cried, and Yaromira turned around just in time to see the worgen duck behind the trees, dodging around twisted, fleshy creatures without fear.

"Elizra, stop!" Yaromira called out in vain, and just as the worgen wife disappeared into the woods, it became apparent that the worgen husband was gone as well.

Her head spinning from fear not of phobias in her head but the very real threat of the disgusting monsters in front of them, Yaromira looked all around as she tried to locate her friends and allies. Somehow, she had ended up off of the dirt path, squatting on wet leaves as she ducked underneath another bolt of dark purple electricity aimed at monsters she couldn't even see. Cackling of a gnoll filled the air as Meatball's mace rang off the heads of the creatures, but he was nowhere to be seen. Her light spell had been disrupted, and in the darkness she dashed frantically to avoid the swipes through the air that she felt just at her back. This was a very different kind of fear; a very real, logically justifiable fear.

Four dimly glowing eyes caught her attention and Yaromira ran for them, leaping and landing in between Cecilia and Khujand. They fought back to back as they swung their glaives, Yaromira huddling in the middle as she crouched low and strained her eyes in the darkness. Purple shadow bolts, green Druidic swirls and lots of blood flickered through the air in the distance, all of it happening too fast for her flustered mind to focus.

"How did we get separated!" Yaromira huffed, not knowing what else to ask yet wanting a million answers.

In between cleaving swings, Cecilia tried her best to respond. "The landscape is shifting around us. The creatures don't have to try that hard," the night elf gasped.

"How can we stop-op-op ow!"

Before Yaromira could even finish her sentence, she lost her footing, having been leaning against Cecilia's back up until when the huntress disappeared on her. She hit the wet leaves again, her head a bit dizzy as her teeth clacked together. Filled with terror, separated from her friends and unsure of what to do, Yaromira hid herself behind the back of an unidentified member of the party as they downed more of the monsters, wondering how things could have gone so wrong so quickly.


	5. The Bottom

Kiul rolled down the hill that shouldn't have been there, covering his head with his arms as he allowed himself to spin into the roll rather than resisting it. Though he was no adventurer, he knew that trying to stop himself might result in injury; protecting oneself was more important during a fall, especially a surprise had been no hills; all the land in the area was flat plain, and even in he woods Kiul had seen no ditches. For sure, this was the work of whatever presence had lured them there. And as he rolled to a stop at the bottom of the hill, all he could do was try to catch his breath and curse himself for having led his wife, his friends and his colleagues on such an awful pounding as he lied on a pile of wet leaves, Kiul tried to figure out what had happened.

He knew what happened on the dirt path: they had been separated, some of them panicked and the creatures intelligently took advantage. What he was wondering about was the bigger should have been a simple citizen's arrest quest, he thought. Bring a bunch of capable fighters, have them track down the murderer or the magician behind the murders and bring him to the elder council for sentencing. He had heard the adventurers he worked with talk of such quests before. Kiul had never been interested in that lifestyle, but he knew about it through his coworkers and assumed this should be easy enough for them to handle.

Yet there he was, a panting heap at the bottom of a hill he hadn't even seen, alone in the dark and responsible for what had could have convinced the Alliance authorities at the garrison to send a larger contingent. They could have requested more bruisers from Steamwheedle. They didn't need to attempt this ordeal themselves; he had been the one to organize it.

It was his fault. And as much sympathy as he had for the villagers, he had no difficulty admitting to himself that the lives of his friends mattered sat up on his knees, trying his best to see around himself in the darkness. The sounds of the skirmish died away while he was trying to catch his breath, and only the slight rustle of the leaves from the occasional push of the wind filled the air. He didn't know what to do or where to go; every direction could lead to his death.

"Kiul…"

Her voice. His wife's.

Not hers. It was one of the monsters. It had to be.

"Kiul…"

The voice of Yaromira whispered again, beckoning terror gripped him as he imagined what sort of contorted version of the love of his life might face him. He stood up regardless, knowing he likely had little choice. Trying not to think of what may have happened to the real Yaromira, he searched for the voice silently, resolving to face down whatever fear the creatures wanted to present to him. It was all fake - their transformations, at least. The creatures themselves were very real.

"Help," the voice whispered in a monotone, unenthusiastic tone. Certainly not the tone of someone who actually needed help.

In the darkness, he spied a rock shaped like a wedge and picked it up with trembling hands - not from fear of the monsters, but from himself. Kiul had never been in a fight in his life. He was a big man, but also an avowed pacifist; he had no idea what exactly he'd do with the rock whenever he came across one of the monsters. If he fought back, he'd betray everything he held true; if he didn't, he'd die, and leave his wife and his friends to search for his body in vain. For the first time in his life, he realized that his core belief was truly being tested.

Wandering through the woods, Kiul had a visibility range of only about a yard, and that's when he realized there were no stars in the sky. Likely a part of the local curse, he surmised while stepping over a bush. The voice grew nearer and increased in volume slightly, and he was able to pick up subtle differences between it and the real Yaromira's. He wouldn't let himself be fooled-

"Kiul, help…" the voice repeated just as a body came into few in front of him. The glowing eyes gave it away.

Lying before him was the corpse of what appeared to be a draenei female wearing a light brown uniform for the Steamwheedle Cartel. She was covered in cuts and bruises and surviving on shallow breaths. It was quite a convincing sight, and Kiul even felt a pain in his heart for a split second before he noticed that her body had unnatural lumps and contusions that wouldn't be there from a simple thrashing.

"You're not real," he accused the figure as he gripped the rock a little more tightlt.

In a flash, the creature turned to him, its face like an ugly, deformed version of the beautiful wife he knew so well. It may have said something to him, but he didn't hear it as he bit back his anger. The creatures had gotten inside of his head to find his guilt at having dragged the group into this; and that guilt was easily overridden by his resentment over the violation of his most private thoughts.

At first, he raised the rock above his head, not even sure what he intended to do with it. His eyes stung with salt as he almost felt tears prick at the corners, his conscience pleading against his base instinct that screamed for self preservation. His instinct wanted to throw the rock, to hit the being posing as his wife, trying to make him feel guilty. It would have been the first time he ever committed an act of violence in his life. And that fact, more than anything, is what stopped him.

::THUNK::

He dropped the rock on the wet leaves of the forest floor, taking a few steps back from the imposter. "No...not now, not ever," he sniffed to himself, backing off from the unnerving but now unconvincing sight as he resigned himself to let what would happen just happen if it meant proving to himself that he was the man he saw himself as.

A piercing screech rang out as the creature folded in on itself, dropping out of view. Whether it actually disappeared or sank into the ground he could not tell, but he only saw out of the corner of his eye as he continued walking aimlessly through the forest; his tormentor no longer in his way.

Fueled by his anger both at the creatures and himself, Kiul trotted a little faster, no longer concerned with hiding from the potentially violent, dangerous ones. He didn't even bother thinking about what could happen; he merely acted, tired of reacting.

"Anybody!" Kiul called out loudly as he swept an area at least half a mile in a large arc. "Can anybody hear me?"

Though he couldn't quite hear anyone else nearby - the death screeches of more creatures and the furious snickers of Meatball as the gnoll cracked some skulls were vaguely audible from a far away distance and a direction Kiul couldn't discern - he could see someone. Two dim silver orbs bobbed up and down near the ground perhaps another quarter of a mile through the woods that, from the outside, appeared even smaller than that in their totality. He couldn't be sure if the two glowing eyes belonged to the real Cecilia, but he was determined to find out.

"Cici!" he shouted as he moved as quickly as he could while dodging in and out of the trees. She didn't react despite the sensitivity of her ears, and he tried again just as he reached her. "Cici, are you alright?"

She still didn't answer, and as he knelt next to her, he jumped back upon seeing what the weak glow of her eyes had cast light on.

"By the Light!" Kiul stammered as he tried to in a twisted heap beneath Cecilia was…Cecilia.

It had to be fake, but the initial shock hit him so hard that he didn't have time to process that. Dressed in unwashed rags whose colored dyes had faded, the doppelganger version of the Kaldorei heroine was more realistic than the doppelganger of Yaromira, though abhorrent nonetheless. The hair was grey - unlike Cecilia's dark azure color, which surely must be natural - but lacked the fine texture of most elves. The follicles looked brittle, and appeared to be thinning out on the top of the head. There were liver spots on the doppelganger's skin similar to what happened to orcs and humans as they aged, and the figure was somewhat bony, lacking the corded muscle typical of night elf women. Most striking were the eyes - they had no glow to them at all. They almost looked dead, completely lacking in that elven shine as they lay open.

Cecilia did not move; even her back barely heaved up and down with her breathing.

"Cici, whatever is going on in your head right now, you have to clear it out. These monsters are real, but everything they're showing us is a caraciture of what's in our heads," he tried to explain, frustrated by her lack of response. "They're images and nothing more."

Ignoring him once again, she reached out a clawed hand and took the doppelganger's much thinner hand in hers, feeling the bones and ligaments on the hand of the deformed figure that weren't visible in her own. The veins looked gnarled, as though she'd received too many transfusions of medicine or blood or something like that over and over again, yet shallow breaths indicated that the doppelganger was somehow alive. Letting the aged, weathered hand slip to the ground, Cecilia raised her own hands up to her face, examining them as she lamented under her breath in elf language. She was completely gone, entranced and apparently depressed, and the entire environment around her radiated a sense of hopelessness and sadness.

Due not so much to a phobia as to the simple fact that Cecilia was extremely dangerous and now appeared unstable, Kiul hesitated for a long time, waiting for her unusually weak voice to go silent before actually touching her. He stood way back and reached as far as he could before nudging her on the shoulder, breathing out a sigh of relief when she didn't react by decapitating him. She only continued looking at what few patches of her skin were left uncovered by her thorium plate armor, running a finger along the unblemished veins.

Finally understanding what it was that bothered her so, Kiul garnered up a bit more courage and poked her healthy looking vein as well. "You're fine; that isn't you," he told her urgently, ignoring the suddenly angry glare from the decrepit doppelgänger as it broke character. "That isn't real. You're strong, and the most capable of us here."

Although clearly disturbed by his words, Cecilia seemed to snap out of her stupor, blinking a few times before loosening - though not relaxing - her body language. Refusing to look up at Kiul, she only nodded in affirmation, watching the doppelganger gradually melt into a rather disgusting mix of liquid flesh and rotten undergrowth. She waited for a period afterward and so did he, unsure of what exactly to do. Her glaive and shield both lay on either side of her, and another screech of the limping creatures pushed him to push her.

"Cici, we don't have much time," he whispered, dropping his voice in case they could possibly surprise the approaching monsters. "We have to find the others if we want to win this."

Taking her time, she gathered her gear without the normal firmness in her grip. She didn't at all appear to be the warrior of the night they had all come to know and rely on, and she still avoided Kiul's gaze while standing up. The uneven footsteps of the creatures grew nearer, and he tried frantically to get Cecilia to wake up to the threat.

"Look, they got inside your head! They did that to me, too - they pretended to be Yara, and showed me something...awful," he whispered hurriedly. "But you can't let them control you. They have no power beyond how much you let them affect you." He stopped, startled by more screeching less than ten yards away. "And the ability to stab us - which is sort of imminent - whoa!"

::SHINK::

The tri-bladed moon glaive whizzed right by Kiul's head before he even realized that Cecilia had thrown it, and she caught it effortlessly but also unenthusiastically just as he heard the sound of six small bodies hitting the ground. The screeching and footsteps ceased, and he was left with a distant, crestfallen protector.

"That was incredible!" Kiul practically chirped, trying to raise her spirit. He could tell that the sight of a senile version of herself had sapped her strength, and while her sense of self preservation remained, her commanding presence had diminished.

"Thank you," she muttered while staring at the ground.

"I didn't even know you had thrown your weapon by the time you killed them...by the Light, it sounded like six of them! How do you do that?"

Confounded only for a moment, her expression hardened, though not in aggreasion, at his words. "This is no time for idle talk," Cecilia droned in that monotone voice most sentinels used when on duty. Her countenance wounded but recovering slightly at his tacit encouragement, she met his gaze and almost even straightened up her posture.

 _That's the spirit_ , he thought. "Oh, you're right!" Kiul beamed, pretending to be surprised. Many centuries ago he had been a part of a small theatre company, and in times like these (or when his wife asked him loaded questions) he always felt grateful for the experience. "I think I heard Meatball, but I can't figure out the direction."

Her long ears twitched, and by brushing off a scene that seemed to have embarrassed her greatly like it never happened, Cecilia gained some sort of a mental second wind. "He's that way," she said while pointing off into the darkness. "Elizra is healing him; I hear the sound of her spell."

The two bounded off, Cecilia leading the way and leaping over rocks and hedges as Kiul tried his best to keep up. As they moved, he heard the familiar snicker again, as well as the quiet murmuring of a worgen female ahead of them. Not wanting to startle anybody, Kiul announced their approach first.

"Elizra, Meatball, is that you?" he called gnoll laughed in response, and leaves rustled as Elizra's figure turned to face them.

"Oh, thank the Light! We thought we were the only ones - watch out for that," she said while pointing to about two dozen corpses of the melting creatures, most of their heads being caved in by Meatball's mace. "We lost sight of everybody else, and then got swarmed by more of these creatures. I'd be dead if it weren't for him," she said while pointing toward Meatball.

For once, the gnoll stayed silent, likely due to the fact that he didn't seem able to speak quietly ever and didn't want to draw more attention to the group yet. Fully healed by Elizra, he only had a the marked from a few healed scratches here and there, which was remarkable considering the number of monsters he had apparently killed, and Elizra seemed surprisingly upbeat.

"Where is Tyron?" Kuil asked softly, remembering her panic when he had initially dropped out of view.

Elizra tried to force a smile, but Kiul could see through it. "He fell into a pond, but it wasn't that deep." She looked down and wrought her hands, still forcing herself to smile. "He's afraid to learn how to swim."

"He's okay, right? He climbed out?"

"Yes, I saw him from afar. The water was only waist deep, and he killed the monsters trying to pull him under," Elizra explained, and Kiul grimaced. Even though he wasn't afraid of water himself, anyone would be afraid of the misshaped little hands trying to pull them under. "He can handle himself fine, but everything went crazy and we got separated when we lost sight on the dirt path. I heard Meatball attacking the creatures and ran to him, and that's how we got here."

Relieved at the news and the relative calm of the group's most vulnerable member, Kiul started to get down to business. "Cici, can you hear any of the others?" he asked the elf, hoping her long ears would pick up something.

Distant yet no longer depressed, the heavily armored huntress obliged, swiveling her ears around to check. "Someone is hiding nearby; I hear her breathing," she said, and Kiul hoped it was Yaromira despite also being concerned for the others.

"You're sure it isn't a monster?" he asked.

"No. No, the breathing is too normal. And the person is large, by the sound of their lungs." Cecilia frowned, unconcerned with hiding her feelings. "It must be Tulaani. The person sounds too tall to be Yara or Gie."

Slightly disappointed - selfish, yes, but he couldn't deny it - Kiul began searching his pocket for the tiny tinder and flint box before remembering that Cecilia was a night elf, specifically. "Can you lead us to her?"

Only nodding, the warrior of the night moved as though she was fueled by resentment, regaining her resolve by the minute as she moved out in front, crouching low as she searched. Meatball hung back, keeping his mace at the ready in case they were flanked. After a few minutes during which Kiul heard nobody else, not even any more monsters, Cecilia stopped.

"Tulaani, it's us," she said as though she were entirely sure of who it was. "You can come out-"

Before Cecilia could finish her sentence, the shadow priestess - who had apparently been hiding in shadow form - materialized and forced a hug on the reluctant night elf warrior. "I'm sorry, Cici!" Tulaani apologized as though they had known each other for more than a day, not even noticing when Elizra turned it into a forced group hug. "We'll find him along with the others, don't worry!"

Melancholy and sorrow were quickly replaced with an indignant stiffness, and Tulaani's gaffe energized Cecilia in a way that Kiul's miniature pep rally had been unable to. "What do you mean, 'we'?" she asked sternly while pushing the clinging draenei away slightly.

"Our team!" Tulaani exclaimed, oblivious to the possible infight that was brewing. "I never expected this to happen. Back at the garrison in Talador, Khuj and I-"

"Khuj!" Cecilia scoffed, this time holding on to Tulaani rather than letting her go. "You don't need to call him that!" Elizra stepped back, quickly understanding what was going on and shooting Kiul a pleading look.

"Cici, I believe the Soulbinder and mister Khujand merely have a working professional relationship-"

"Relationship?" Cecilia blurted out, losing her Kaldorei cool. Kiul quickly regretted his choice of works upon seeing her reaction, and Tulaani went from being confused to offended. Which could make the situation even worse, he realized.

"What the...Cici-"

"I am Huntress Hearthglen," Cecilia huffed at the dumbstruck draenei.

"Why are you acting like this? I didn't do anything wrong!" Tulaani protested, too offended to be properly afraid.

"We're still in a cursed forest surrounded by shape shifting creatures that know our fears," Elizra protested, but to no avail.

"Look, I don't know what kind of idea you're getting, but it's wrong and unfair to me and to your fiance! I met Khujand as another neutral garrison follower and our capabilities are similar. We work well together on missions, nothing more - stop, you're hurting my wrists!" Cecilia stopped squeezing so hard, but retained her grip, and Tulaani appeared undaunted as she stopped struggling. "Look, you have nothing to worry about. Everybody at the garrisons I've encountered him at knows about his engagement - he doesn't even hide it from Horde recruitment officers."

"I trust my fiancé," Cecilia nearly growled, and Meatball became visibly agitated as her voice was met with a growl from one of the creatures, though at a very long distance. "It's other women I don't trust."

"Even me? Do you even know me to accuse me of such things?"

"You're a fine professional woman, that's all I need to know," Cecilia said in what came off as more of an accusation than a compliment.

"Are you accusing me of something?" Tulaani asked, sincerely upset. "Be up front, am I being accused of wrongdoing here? Because I have nothing to hide!"

"You don't need to call him nicknames or hang around him so much, for that matter."

"Hang around -? I've done five missions with him! And everybody calls him that, women and men and even the Pleasure Bot 9000," Tulaani stated firmly. "I do not hang around him, nor do I speak to him in a way that the others don't. And it's not like anybody could just up and take him when he's so smitten by you anyway."

Cecilia's eyes narrowed, and Kiul left them to play out their skirmish of words. Elizra was perturbed both by them and the approaching sounds and Meatball paced around the group in circles in anticipation, but interrupting them might make things worse.

"What do you mean?" Cecilia asked skeptically.

"Are you joking? Seriously? Why would he give any women a second glance when he can have you? You're the first thing he mentions whenever I see him introduced to new people. He even wears your engagement band on quests involving combat." There was no softness in Tulaani's words, which only made them seem more sincere, and Cecilia appeared relaxed, if not apologetic.

"Guys, something just killed the creatures," Kiul finally said, unable to hold it in any longer, though he didn't manage to steal their attention away just yet.

Cecilia stared at Tulaani for a good long time, and the draenei didn't look away. An expression that could almost be described as the embarrassment Kiul had witnessed earlier crept in on her face, and she released Tulaani's wrists to pat her on the shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Cecilia muttered grudgingly.

"It's nothing, don't mention it."

"No, I am mentioning it. I'm sorry for my suspicions."

"You don't have to be sorry, just realize that they're silly," Tulaani said without any resentment over the initial rough treatment she'd received. "He's a good man whom I respect and nothing more. And he's very lucky to have someone who cares the way you do."

Smiling congenially before returning the earlier hug, Cecilia then straightened to face Kiul. "I hear the crackle of magic from the direction where the creatures just died," she reported in her sentinel voice. "The others are close."

Relieved not only at having half the team reassembled but also at relations being smoothed out, Kiul stiffened his inner resolve at the same time he felt the rest of the group do so as well - even Elizra. "Let us make haste, then. This curse split us up once; it won't happen twice!"

Marching with renewed energy and focus, Cecilia led as Kiul and hurried along with Elizra, Tulaani and Meatball, all of them ready to find the source of the curse and end it.


	6. The Source

Yaromira scrambled after the two electric red orbs, ignoring the stinging pain in her eyes. She refused to blink for fear that she would lose sight of her allies again, and the dryness caused a few tears to well up as the air stung her. Tripping over roots that she couldn't even see in the darkness, she narrowly avoided the swipes of a few of the creatures as she tried to reach help.

"Over here! I'm here!" she called out, and the faint flash of both red and amber indicated just how far away she was from anyone else.

At the last second, she sensed a low tree branch in front of her and ducked, stumbling and falling onto the leaf covered ground. The four glowing eyes felt out of view and she felt her heart sink as well as the grasping hands that swept up her back. They were large hands on short arms, and the fingers were loose and spindly as though they lacked any real meat inside of them.

"Aaaaiiieee!" Yaromira yelped as the leather strap of her backpack was torn, and she felt her travel items tumble behind her as she kicked the creature back, stumbling again in the process.

Although she had no phobia and had already conquered her fear the last time the creatures tried to get in her head, there was still the matter of their viciousness. Despite their limping, plodding, uneven paces, the creatures were incredibly violent and had caused quite a problem for the fighters in their group in great numbers. A committed non-combatant, Yaromira worried about even facing down the handful she could hear screaming behind her, and began to panick as she felt their flaccid, clawed fingers raking the air behind her.

Mustering up all her courage, Yaromira charged up her mana, turned around, closed her eyes and cast the most powerful light spell she was capable of.

The creatures screamed again, this time in agony as they slashed at each other in the mayhem. When she opened her eyes, she saw their typical jerky, lurching movements lacking what little direction they once had, and when she scrambled to her feet they weren't even able to follow her sound. When she fell backward into a wall of solid muscle, she screamed herself from both the impact and the blood that dropped on her uniform.

"Help me!" Yaromira cried out in vain.

"That's what imma gonna do!" replied the familiar accented, excessively deep voice she'd gotten used to since her assignment in west Gorgrond.

::SHINK::

Khujand swept his double ended glaive so low to the ground as he cut three of the monsters in half that Yaromira had to dodge him as well, literally falling once more and clinging to his bloody leg. Kirandros flanked the blinded monsters in elven form, whacking away with his heavy staff as they went flying. Wood and metal slammed in to the creatures as Yaromira fought to catch her breath and calm her normally steeled nerves. Very soon, ten dead creatures littered the area, their corpses gradually melting into the ground. She stood up, trying to compose herself in front of people she was technically supposed to be leading.

"Thank you both so much," she stated as dryly as she could, part of her attempt to stay calm. "I don't know what I would have done had you not arrived."

"We are here to protect and serve," Kirandros beamed. It was then that she noticed that he no longer had a scratch on him, whereas minutes ago when everyone had been split up, he had been as scratched up as Khujand.

"Kirandros, can you heal him?" Yaromira asked expectantly.

Both men fell silent, the jungle troll looking a big indignant and the night elf looking a bit awkward. "I'm trying to conserve my mana," Kirandros claimed, and the two men avoided each other's gaze in the way people who had just finished an argument did.

"Conserve it for what, Kirandros? Elizra isn't here, we need you to heal!" Yaromira protested to the reluctant Druid. "He can handle cleansing duties, and he can resurrect too, so that leaves healing to you."

Looking as though he might not do it at first, the elf eventually relented and casted what Yaromira recognized as a weak healing over time spell. The cuts up and down the skin exposed by the troll's medium armor stopped bleeding, and for sure they would eventually seal themselves up if left alone. As the magic worked its...well, magic, Yaromira tried to push forward.

"Even if this place is cursed, the others can't be far," she stated while keeping her voice down. "Khuj, what are you picking up?"

Closing his eyes, the Shadow Hunter hummed to himself, and both he and she ignored the Guardian Druid's rolling of his eyes. When Khujand opened his own eyes again, they glowed a bit brighter than before. "We've killed most of those things...tha source of this forest is generatin' them, not tha forest itself. But tha source is far. Most of tha others are far, except Gie. I sense that Gie is real close."

"Lead the way! We need to gather everyone and take a head count," Yaromira beamed, determined not to let the group be trampled like it had a second time. "You two can see in the dark, but don't get too far ahead of me."

As they walked, Yaromira stayed behind them, unable to see but trusting that they were going in the right direction. Gradually, the number of creature corpses increased, all of them bearing wounds that had frozen over with ice magic. She tried to hold on to both of their back straps at first, but Kirandros pretended to shrug and walked a little faster. In any other time she would call him out for not being a team player, but given their dire situation it simply didn't seem like an option. When the two men came to a stop, Yaromira bumped into them again, something which had become a habit over the course of the past day and night.

"Oh, my..." whispered Kirandros as Yaromira pushed her way between then two men to see what they were looking at.

Lying against the lower embankment of a hill and surrounded by an impossible number of the slain creatures was the Gravewalker, still breathing but the blue glow of her eyes dim. Proving that death knights still bled, there was a puddle of the stuff and the leaves all around her were stained dark red. Yaromira slid across the leaves over to her, trying to find the source of the blood.

"Gie, where is it?" she asked the pandaren, who lay in a slightly curled up position.

Responding to the voice, Gie rolled over onto her back, revealing a series of disgusting gashes across her neck, leaving both her throat and her two arteries open. Her breathing was weak as she looked up at Yaromira, her blood spattered all the way up to the grey fur of her muzzle.

Feeling the panic rise within her, Yaromira fought for control of herself as she yelled back at their newly designated healer. "Kirandros, she's lost too much blood! Hurry-"

She was silenced by the force of a heavy plate gauntlet gripping her arm. She turned back only to see Gie looking up at her, a very intricate but also very readable set of emotions written on the pandaren's face. Sadness. Disappointment. Resignation. But in her own way, there was somehow hope mixed in there, and as Gie squeezed Yaromira's arm gently, the draenei noticed that the death knight made no attempts to even put pressure on the wounds as she bled out.

"Please, Gie, don't do this," Yaromira begged, her voice cracking for the sake of a heroine who had accepted the task while under her charge. "There's still blood left in you-"

Gie shook her head 'no' while giving Yaromira's arm another squeeze before letting go. Although Gie carried no belt pouches or backpack, she reached into a small ridge at the top of her breast plate, her trembling fingers fiddling around with something metal. When she removed her hand from underneath the ridge, a gold necklace dangled from her fingers. She allowed it to swing such that Yaromira got a good look of the heart shaped pendant at the center. Understanding what the death knight wanted, Yaromira accepted the necklace gingerly and opened the latch on the pendant.

There was a photograph inside - camera technology was a very recent gnomish invention, perhaps less than a decade old, and very expensive to have done. The black and white picture was faded, and Yaromira had to hold it close to see the two figures in the dark. The couple embracing in the photo were clearly pandaren, and the man wore a pair of spectacles despite looking very young. The woman was slightly overweight but quite cute looking nonetheless, her fur a bright contrast between black and white. Upon closer inspection, Yaromira realized it was Gie - a little younger, a little heavier and very much alive.

The blood flowed freely as Yaromira looked between the photo and the hopeful pandaren, begging for her own request via her rapidly fading eyes. Even if she had only met the woman that day, Yaromira still had to control the sting in her throat and nose as she comprehended what Gie was requesting.

"I promise you that I will find him," she whispered softly to the dying knight. "I will find him, and I will tell him."

Satisfied, Gie nodded and leaned back against the embankment. She didn't appear in pain so much as she just looked tired. And as the glow in her eyes faded for good, her lids closed on their own accord, leaving Gie looking like someone sleeping peacefully rather than someone who died. The runes on her sword stopped glowing at the same time, and Yaromira took a few long breaths just to calm her nerves once again, focusing on the low, almost inaudible Zandali chant next to her.

The three of them stood, and after a short time Yaromira knew she would have to be the first to speak. "Kirandros, she needs a proper burial."

Her words took a moment to register, as he didn't react at all at first. Once he seemed to recognize what Yaromira had asked of him, his eyes widened. "A proper, nature-based burial? Those are for the living," he responded congenially though with a hint of surprise in his voice.

"She was one of us; she came here to help these villagers without even requesting payment from Kiul and I," Yaromira explained, assuming that the druid was simply unused to the idea. "I've seen these before, someone of your skill can have the soil reclaim her in a matter of minutes."

"This place is cursed, what do you expect me to do?" he asked, furrowing his brow as though it were the most preposterous suggestion he'd ever heard.

The shadow hunter spoke next, his sadness at losing a comrade tempered by what appeared to be his desire to send her to the next world properly. "I can cleanse tha soil around her," he claimed. "I couldn't cleanse this whole place - it's way too big - but I can cleanse at least tha ground around her." He had already knelt down by the end of his own sentence and begun running his hands around the sides of Gie's body, causing a warm glow to flow from his palms to the ground and back again.

Noticing that preperations were already underway, Kirandros became perturbed. "But she's undead. Her mere existence is a crime against nature!"

Yaromira felt her heart rate jump at the ignorant comment, and she had to bite back her own tongue in order to remain professional. "Who on Azeroth ever experiences undeath by choice? She's just some poor woman whose former life was taken from her and obviously had issues with her undead state. Kirandros, give her a proper burial!"

Khujand continued cleansing the ground around Gie, focusing so much that he didn't hear the exchange. Yaromira felt grateful, actually, as the somehow brutish softie would likely have turned apoplectic at the notion of a heroine he had helped Kiul to recruit being denied a proper burial due to prejudice. None of that seemed to bother Kirandros, however, who continued to resist the idea.

"Yara, I need to conserve my mana. I already expended some of it topping him off when he didn't need it," Kirandros complained, thumbing toward Khujand resentfully.

At that point, Yaromira experienced difficulty containing her own resentment, clutching the necklace in her hand tightly as it shook. "This is what you conserve your mana for - for helping people! Look at him, he's using a lot of it just to cleanse the ground around her. You have to do your part too, she deserves - how are we even having this conversation!" She threw her hands in the air, ever wary of engaging in discussion with employees on matters over which they had no right to make decisions. And in this case, the internal manager came out again and reminded her that as the leader of the party, she needn't engage in discussion over the matter. "Kirandros, this is your job. This is why you're here. Lay this woman to rest!"

The cleansing finished, and the ground around the body glowed slightly as the leaves on the ground - despite having fallen already - turned an almost vibrant shade of green. It was a strong contrast to the dark brown of the wet leaves scattered around the circle, and only made Gie seem more at peace in death. Sighing in defeat, Kirandros concentrated his power as he knelt down and reached forward with both hands, invoking the balance as the very ground underneath Gie shifted. Roots and vines sprouted up out of the ground, wrapping over her lightly and even growing underneath her armor and around her sword as flowers even bloomed from the vines. As most of the surface of the death knight was covered, Yaromira could have sworn that she saw a very faint beam of moonlight make its way through the thick canopy to shine on their fallen ally as the roots and vines pulled tightly, creaking loudly as they formed a sort of shell and then grew over that as well. The entire botanical mass sank, pulling itself down into the shifting topsoil until it fell out of view. A bed of what appeared to be ice blue roses were left in its wake, and Yaromira fastened the necklace around her own neck for safe keeping.

Kirandros rested for a moment once the spell was finished, and they all knelt together as the beam of moonlight gradually faded from the rosebed. He was the first to rise, fidgeting impatiently as the two others said whatever last words they had for the most silent companion.

Kirandros muttered something in elf language, likely forgetting that Khujand could understand him, and the downcast troll immediately grit his teeth and tossed what Yaromira assumed to be an insult back at Kirandros in the language. The druid's eyes widened again, this time in mild outrage rather than shock, and the two men bickered back and forth for a few seconds before she regained control of the situation.

"Calm down, both of you! This is no time for argument," she reminded them while rising as well. "Show respect for the dead and let's be on our way. We have to check on the others before doing anything else!"

Khujand was the first to walk away, having already said his piece, but Kirandros hesitated and hung back as they walked, shifting between staring at the rosebed his magic had created and burning holes in the back of the massive troll's head. Yaromira kept an eye on him using her peripheral vision, also watching in front of them as she renewed her light spell. None of them could quite tell where they were going until one of the two men sensed something, and for the time being she had to lead again - from the safety of standing between the two of them, lest any more creatures sneak up on their small group.

The trio walked mostly in silence, winding in between the densely packed trees as they swept the woodland in a wide circle. It was much, much larger on the inside than it had looked on the outside - likely a result of the curse distorting reality. Even though Yaromira's experience with the arcane was only enough to call herself barely a novice, she could sense a small amount of it in the aura of the place. She remembered the explanation from earlier in the day about the source of the curse being a combination of different schools of magic, and wondered who could have created such a thing. Was it a group of corrupted magicians? Or some sort of ancient artifact?

She had plenty of time to ponder those questions, as the woods never seemed to end. As they looped back in a direction they had already come from, Yaromira noticed that the trees were different - not simply in different places, but entirely different trees.

"The environment is shifting around us," she murmured, knowing her long eared companions would be able to hear her.

"The result of the death magic in this blasted place, no doubt," Kirandros stated with a certainty in his voice as they dodged around unfamiliar formations of trees. "I really don't understand how some people can fall into something so horrid."

Irritated more from the slight against their recently deceased comrade than their living one there with them, Yaromira couldn't help but react this time. The audacity of his comment came off as an attempt to instigate another argument, which was incredibly petty and immature given what a dangerous circumstance they found themselves in. She hoped her intuition was wrong, but the snide expression on the druid's face told otherwise.

"That school of magic is what will help us find the source of this curse," she retorted in the most polite voice she could muster. She was about to say more but stopped, not wanting to fall into a cross debate with one of her party members.

His amber eyes flickered as though he had been irritated as well. "My people survived for thousands of years, facing down all sorts of threats from demons and mages using only the magic of life granted by nature itself," he said with a haughtiness that would put any blood elf archmage to shame. "We never had any need for runes or shadow or voodoo, or any of that poppycock."

The jungle troll's ears twitched, but that was the only response as he continued walking. Yaromira felt thankful again that he didn't bother turning around and encouraging the night elf any further; they already had enough to worry about given the dangers of the woods.

"You're entitled to your opinion, Kirandros," she replied over her shoulder as brusquely as she could, "but a true hero protects all of his allies when on a mission. And right now, we have more of those allies to find and save."

"I suppose you're right, Yara, I suppose you're right. Those of us who focus on saving the living rather than consorting with the dead will need to focus our efforts." His voice was still low enough for them to remain stealthy but just loud enough for Khujand to be unable to ignore it, and the sudden silence of the woods became more apparent.

"We get it, Kirandros. Let's focus on the mission."

"You have nothing to fear with two proud Kaldorei by your side, Yara. Once we can locate my comrade Huntress Hearthglen," the druid stated pointedly, "we'll surely be able to make much better progress than we are now."

"That's enough."

"You know, our people tend to associate mainly with other long lived races like yours for a reason: we both respect the natural order of things. That's why you don't find us mixing much, and certainly not intermarrying."

There is was. Something shifted in front of her. It wasn't a physical shift in the environment, nor a change in the temperature or air pressure. It wasn't something she could see, hear or smell, and it wasn't the result of the curse, but the shift was very, very clear. Khujand slowed down a little bit, and almost turned his head over his shoulder to meet the glare Kirandros was shooting him. Grunting once, he turned back to focus on what was ahead of them. He seemed to have been acting the bigger man, but the door had been opened. Kirandros had gotten under his skin.

"I'm sorry if that offends you, by the way," the druid said in such a congenial fashion that it had to be faked.

"Knock it off, Kirandros," Yaromira ordered a bit more forcefully. She couldn't allow this to degenerate.

"But it's better that you know this now, my friend," he continued in a decidedly unfriendly manner. "The temples won't recognize a union between an upstanding Kaldorei female like her and someone from one of the lower orders of species, it's nonsense. Especially not someone who practices voodoo, which by the way is illegal to teach to others even under Horde law."

"Kirandros, I will boot you out of this group!" Yaromira hissed at him, shocking the druid so much that he actually stopped moving. "If you endanger the stability of the whole - oomph!" For what had to be the tenth time that day, Yaromira bumped into somebody while walking without looking forward, as though she were channeling Anushka, her ditzy assistant.

They all stopped to see Khujand already crouched low, his fist on the ground as though he were ready to tackle someone. Kirandros' amber eyes flicked as all the confidence he held literally a second ago drained out. Pulling his staff from his back, he gripped it tightly in front of him in a defensive posture, crouching low as well and staring at something in the darkness that she couldn't see. Tensing up herself in a mild state of panic, Yaromira strained her hearing when she noticed that both of the men's pairs of long ears swiveled around at some sort of noise. Extinguishing her light spell, she listened more closely and picked up the sound of another phantom.

Very, very close, just around an earthen outcropping, came the voice of a woman speaking troll language. It was a bit garbled and pained, but she recognized it from the few times she had overheard Khujand trying to teach Cecilia. Before Yaromira could stop him, he began plodding forward, skulking around the outcropping and wringing his hands like a gigantic child.

"Wait, stop!" she commanded as she hurried after him. Even though his pace was slow, he was still over eight and a half feet tall, and his strides were so long that she had difficulty keeping up. "Don't listen to it! Whatever you might think it is, it isn't!"

As if he were deaf, he slid into a ditch and ambled forward, even after Yaromira froze and choked on her own saliva due to shock. An enormous, insectoid creature sat at the end of the ditch, its bloated body occupying all of the space in a clearing of the trees. It was hideous, its thorax pulsating and transparent with a weight too great for it to walk. Its various limbs were hairy and spiked, and multiple compound eyes focused on the mesmerized jungle troll as though they bore an intelligence. Its fangs alone sent a shiver up Yaromira's spine, and she never physically shivered from anything, even things that scared her a great deal.

Leading out of its mouth was a sinewy tether, running along the ground at least twenty feet. The other end of it was connected to what had Khujand so spooked, and as he stared at it, his eyelids and back trembled. Pointing up with a shaky hand, he tried and failed to speak as Yaromira heard his voice hitch. And from the shape taken by the formerly amorphous blob at the end of the tether in an instant, she could tell why.

Malformed but surprisingly more accurate than the creatures she'd seen so far, a mass of light blue flesh the same color as Khujand's hide appeared. The figure was dressed in the tattered robes of the poor and its belly was a bit distented, as though it was starving. That made the faint odor of embalming fluid even more perplexing, as well as the stiff posture. A mane the same vibrant color of Khujand's mohawk topped her head, and as she babbled in the language in a way that sounded like it would be incoherent, the monstrosity reached for him.

"It's not real!" Yaromira shouted at her contract employee and longtime friend as he cowered away from the mutated version of a female jungle troll that vaguely bore his features. "Don't let them get in your head! Whoever you think it is, isn't really here!"

The bulky insectoid hissed, apparently understanding of what Yaromira had said. Flexing its sharp limbs, it caused the tether to slowly reel back into its mouth, and the mutated figure was left detatched. Just at that second, a tiny lump at the end of the tether began to grow and grow, and Yaromira began to realize that this was how the tiny shapeshifters were created. The figure danced backwards, beckoning for Khujand to follow her toward the insectoid as she sobbed in an unnatural voice that fooled him nonetheless.

Not wanting to see where this was going, Yaromira mustered up as much courage as she could and ran forward, grabbing Khujand by the arm. "Don't listen to it! It's lying, whatever it's making you see or think is a lie!" She grabbed him by the beard and forced him to look at her, and for a split second his glassy eyes appeared distant. "Listen to me!" she yelled, garnering up even more bravery and actually slapping him across the face.

::SMACK::

In disbelief that she'd actually done it, Yaromira stumbled back from the big blue man blinking and shaking his head as though he were dizzy. The insectoid chittered at them, and the figure doubled over as though in even more pain. Khujand closed his eyes hard and snorted a few times, similar to how an elekk would behave after being woken up abruptly. As he turned to see the insectoid again, the female figure began to dissolve into liquid and smoke while still standing, and the body broke into several pieces before hitting the ground.

A second shift occurred, and a sort of natural darkness filled the area. The now grumpy troll bristled and growled deep in his throat, with a sort of rumbling sound like thunder as the insectoid fell quiet. Yaromira felt the entire environment become filled with a non magical rage, and she actually felt more afraid of her friend than she did of the creatures. It was the first time she'd ever seen Khujand angry, and she did not like it.

"DO! NOT! STEAL! MY! THOUGHTS!" Khujand roared even louder than Kirandros had in bear form, actually hurting her ears with his voice as his features contorted in the frightening way a bridge haunting troll's would be expected too.

Dropping his glaive, he set upon the insectoid unarmed. The fight was so awful that Yaromira actually covered her face with her arm to avoid looking and tripped over a rock, hitting the soft leaves on the ground. The sounds were ones she wished she could forget, and she found herself hoping it would just be over. After less than a minute, the movement, noise and heavy thuds traveling through the ground stopped, replaced by the usual rumble of a powerful set of lungs and the green swirls of a cleansing spell.

Opening her eyes, she saw her friend hunched over a mess of gore where the insectoid had once sat. He had a number of dark green pock marks on his body where he appeared to have been stung with venom, but he quickly cleaned them out by using his spell. The cuts and bruises remained, and for the third time that day he was bleeding profusely - and much worse than before. Were he not so distraught she would have slapped him again; they were relying on him and Kirandros to help protect the group, and by dropping his weapon he got himself wounded very badly.

Just as concerned for the hypersensitive, unstable man's mental wellbeing as his physical wellbeing, Yaromira clopped over and placed a hand on one of the few places on his arms that wasn't hurt. He flinched a bit but calmed down when he saw it was her plugging her nose from the bug stench. An actual deep ravine lied just beyond where the insectoid had sat, and some of its scattered body parts lied far down at the bottom. Yaromira helped him to stand up, only to be startled by the rush of air of something bouncing off of his back.

"Hey!" she shouted as she spun around, faced with Kirandros, who looked as surprised as she did.

Having been seriously knocked off balance before just barely avoiding a nasty fall, Khujand turned around and eyed the druid angrily. "Did ya just try ta push me over?" he growled more than asked.

Yaromira's pulse soared at the suggestion, and when Kirandros merely stared up at the wounded but immovable object of a man, she feared the worst. The druid's behavior had merely been presumptuous at the garrison and in the village, but ever since they all found each other in the woods, he'd been behaving erratically. Yaromira moved a little closer to Khujand, and she couldn't shake the feeling that the curse had begun to affect one of their companions.

"And where were ya durin' tha fight-"

The offended shadow hunter was cut off by a string of upset phrases in elf language, glaring back in defiance. His eyes started to flicker more in a strange way.

"I've seen enough!" she huffed at Kirandros, heat rising in her cheeks as the muscles in her temple strained. "Your negligence endangered the group, and now you just tried to assault one of your allies! You're out of the group! Go now, and find your own way out of here! You're jeopardizing those around you!"

Pursing his lips and wearing an expression lacking in any remorse at all, Kirandros' amber eyes flickered again as he hesitated for a few seconds. Shifting into bear form, he snorted at them arrogantly before turning tail and galloping off in the opposite direction, displaying no qualms about traversing a cursed forest by himself.

Once he was out of view, Yaromira, dragged Khujand's heavy fel glaive to him, eyes darting around.

"And then there were two," she joked, trying to lift up her spirits as a part of her wished the other half of the two was her husband.

He straightened up and craned his upper body around, sensing something. Even when he had a tendency to stoop over, he was tall enough such that she could stand underneath his chin and use him as a sort of living wall to hide under as she peered out front, searching for any movement in the darkness. Upon noticing how the creatures had tapered off in number, she felt a small twinge of hope. "Was this bug thing spawning them? Are they all gone?"

After a moment of sniffing the air, he shook his head. "No, but there're only a few more. And tha source is close. And..." His voice trailed off and he strapped his glaive to his backstrap, humming excitedly. "I sense tha others. At least five of them - they're very, very close!"

In spite of feeling slightly selfish, Yaromira hoped that Kiul would be among them, and she even started moving without knowing the correct direction. "Lead the way, then. We've seen how to end these things," she beamed, a burst of energy running through her. "Time to cut them off at the source!"


	7. The Culprit

Kiul felt a bead of sweat drip down his temple as they all raced toward the source of the flashing light and clashing metal. One of the flashes looked distinctly like the light spell Yaromira often used, and his heart fluttered at the notion that she could be safe with some of the others.

"Onward!" Cecilia bellowed as she raced forward with renewed energy after having looked psychologically disturbed by the apparition of herself earlier.

"I sense them - Khujand is there, but I can't find Gie," Tulaani yelled as they rubbed her fingers on her temples. It was difficult to hear her over the whipping of the air in his ears as Kiul struggled to keep up, but he spied her just as she shifted into shadow form.

Meatball waddled surprisingly fast despite being the shorted person in the group by at least a foot and a half - he was rather short even by the standards of gnolls - and he left the three of them in the dust as Elizra held back from running at her usual high speed.

The clashes grew louder as well as the long hiss of air being released from a dying bug, and as they neared, the clamor, Kiul saw Cecilia leap forward about twenty feet in the air and slam her glaive down into a writhing, pulsating mass. Khujand was there was well, and sliced a few more of the tiny creatures to pieces before flinging his glaive long distance into a disgusting, bloated insect even larger then himself as Cecilia wailed on it. Yaromira was there, and she caught sight of Kiul just as he narrowly avoided slipping and falling down a hill while dodging a tree he only saw at the last minute.

"Yara!" he cried out in joy when he noticed that she was unhurt.

Husband and wife ran to each other and embraced, and even when surrounded by smelly dead monsters, he still relaxed enough to give her a little spin through the air before putting her back down. Once they were finished killing the big bug, the engaged couple joined the married couple while the others surveyed the carnage.

"You all made it!" Yaromira chirped, and Kiul knew it was for the sake of everybody and not just himself.

"It took us a while, but we managed to find each other," he replied, scanning their reunited group of friends quickly. "It's only the two of you?"

Yaromira continued smiling, but he could feel that the sadness was there - she could hide it from the others, but not him. Everyone else chatted amongst themselves, almost - but not quite - standing at ease in spite of the bloody adventure. Kiul let his wife go for a moment, clasping her hands in his as he tried to figure out what had happened.

"Did we lose anybody?"

She nodded slowly, forcing herself to continue smiling as she ran her fingers along a necklace she was wearing. "Gravewalker Gie had loved ones," Yaromira replied solemnly. "I promised her to find them once we're back on Azeroth."

Pausing for a moment, Kiul had to fight off another wave of guilt as he remembered that he was the one who had recruited the death knight in the first place. "May the Light reunite them one day," he prayed along with Yaromira quietly. "Anyone else?"

"Yes; I booted Kirandros from the group," she said sternly as she arched her brow, her entire countenance changing in a split second.

"Guardian Druid Galeheart?" Kiul asked in surprise. He would never doubt his wife's judgment, but the news certainly souned strange. "What on Draenor happened?"

"I think the curse may have affected him. He watched Khujand fight one of these bug things without helping, and then tried to shove him into a ravine," Yaromira explained, the resentment apparent in her voice.

It was difficult news to take in, but his wife was never one to exaggerate about such things. "And he's gone?" Kiul asked for confirmation that they wouldn't face a second threat.

"He shifted and ran off."

Just then, Kiul noticed that Elizra had moved over to them and was staring at Yaromira expectantly. His wife arched her brows in sympathy and she held the worgen woman's hand.

"We're going to find him," Yaromira reassured her in regard to her husband, Tyron. Elizra nodded silently and forced a smile as well, similar to Yaromira's demeanor when delivering the news about Gie.

Tulaani stepped forward again, breaking the brief aria of sorrow. "The source is very, very close, and apparently these things spawned the creatures," she panted, still tired from the sprint across the woods just a few minutes ago. "And the source spawned these things. We're almost done with this."

Everyone chatted more excitedly save Elizra, as they all sensed that the end to the ordeal was near. Not wanting to leave anyone's needs untended, Kiul approached the concerned Gilnean aside from the others.

"Elizra...if you want, the others will search for Tyron first," he offered in a soft voice. "We never leave anyone behind. He's an integral part of our team, and a dear friend."

Mulling it over for a moment, Elizra shook her head, taking a deep breath before she responded. "No, it's okay. Wherever Tyron is, he will want us to finish the mission first." Not even bothering to fake a smile, Elizra looked down at the ground. It seemed to help her contain herself better, and the others gave her some space while Yaromira put an arm around the crestfallen woman's shoulder and led her behind the others.

Kiul turned back to Tulaani, who had caught her breath and looked very serious. "I think we're all ready."

Quickly falling into a new formation, the group marched. Elizra hung in the middle with Kiul and Yaromira, and after being healed by the worgen, Khujand held up the back in the perennial role as meat shield. Taking a bit of a risk, Tulaani marched near the front but in her shadow form, pointing the way as Cecilia stayed on point to meet whatever danger might face them head on. Meatball stayed around the sides, trotting quickly as he scanned all around. They created a little more noise than they may have liked to, but at that point they were less concerned with sneaking up on the source of their troubles and more so with simply stamping it out.

The woods became eerily silent as they followed Tulaani's directions, and Meatball began snickering low in his throat, possibly in anticipation of the coming conflict.

"It's growing weaker," Tulaani mumbled, but somehow loudly enough for the others to hear.

"It's escaping?" Yaromira asked urgently.

"Naw, that ain't what she meant," Khujand corrected.

"The source is growing weaker in power. I don't know why, but it is," Tulaani explained. "It's as though not being afraid of it drains it."

"The tables of fear will be turned soon enough," Cecilia muttered angrily as the group navigated their way through a particularly thick patch of forest.

Before they could see anything, Kiul could hear the bubbling of a thick liquid heated at high temperature. There weren't any natural lava flows in Nagrand, and he assumed it to be some sort of accursed cauldron - perhaps the source from whence the big creatures came. And when he heard the chittering as the whole group drew nearer, he felt sure of it.

It only took a few more minutes of treading carefully in and out of the trees before Cecilia leaped ahead again, crashing into the ground with a metallic clang as Kiul saw the bodies of several especially malformed creatures flying away from the shockwave. Khujand's double ended glaive flew overhead into the darkness and was followed by an insectoid screech as Meatball rushed forward to join the fray, cackling all the way.

The cacophony was subdued and fast, and Kiul, Yaromira and Elizra didn't even have to hide behind Tulaani for that long before the melee had ended. The bubbling sound revealed itself via green bubbles popping in the nighttime air ahead, and a grumble in the native language of the people of Draenor alerted Kiul to the presence of another sentient.

Losing his sense of danger momentarily, he pushed forward past the others until the disgusting fel green pool came into view. A gnarled hut sat at its edge, and a number of smooth stones about his own height bore the runes of arcane, demonic and undead magic along with several more stones bearing runes he couldn't recognize. Several of the others caught up to him, though he didn't notice who it was in his drive to figure out who had been responsible not only for the murder of four innocent villagers but also a brave heroine who had gotten involved in the mess due to his recruitment and the possible corruption of another.

"We can hear you rambling, you nutcase!" Kiul shouted in Common without even truly knowing if the voice was that of the perpetrator or just another victim. A rage that felt alien to his normally cool head filled him, and it became apparent in his voice. "Show yourself!"

His wife clopped up next to him as his eyes darted around, searching for any movement in or around the hut. The area seemed calm, and for a few seconds the grumbling stopped. Their comrades continued fighting more of the gigantic insect things behind them; Kiul hadn't seen any, but he knew they were there based on the screeches. Elizra joined the two of them, though Tulaani remained behind, most likely helping the others run a final sweep of the area to clear out the rest of the enemies.

Just when he was about to call out again, Kiul received a jolt as a pile of leaves popped up in a burst of air about ten yards away. Most likely stressed out from the night's events, Yaromira flung herself at him, and Elizra then flung herself on both of them, and Kiul had to prevent all three of them from falling over.

Rising up out of a space too small to have contained a living being, an old man of his race twisted around to face them. His skin glowed with deep cuts infected by some sort of fel Magic, and he bore a staff tipped by the skull of another draenei. Most abhorrently, the man's bare chest had a number of stitch marks over where his heart should have been, and his forehead crest bore what appeared to be a single, unopenable eyelid that pulsated.

"You speak the language of the aliens," the old man rasped in draenei, totally unafraid even as his minions were falling all around him.

Elizra immediately hid behind Kiul and his wife, growling at the apparent villain behind the killings and nightmares but already trembling in fear as well. The man's patchwork robes that looked like a cross between those of a warlock and an archmage clinked as he ambled forward menacingly, but Kiul held his ground. If there were ever a time in his life where he felt he had been pushed to the brink of harming another living being, this was it.

"Five people are dead because of you," he harshly accused the man in their own tongue. "I know it was you, and it all ends here. We're hauling you back to let the villagers decide how to exact their revenge on you!"

The man's laughter was quick and bemused, and he even lowered his head as though he held no worries of being attacked. "My dear sir...what makes you think that your friends are still here?"

It was then that Kiul realized the noise of the battle had stopped. Glancing around, he noticed that the trees all looked unfamiliar as though the magician had shifted the landscape around him. This only made Kiul even more upset; his friends had sacrificed too much to put an end to this reign of terror. He wouldn't let them down.

"We're not afraid of you anymore. Your power has weakened. Give up now and just make it easier on yourself!"

Undaunted, the magician only laughed again, though this time it sounded a little more sinister. "Whatever ideas you have about your efforts...whatever notions you believed about this place...whatever preconceptions you held about your ability to stop this...let them go. I did, back when I was like you...and I've felt much better ever since." The man stepped forward again, and Kiul felt Elizra duck down behind them. Yaromira grit her teeth but pulled back a little as well, and it took all of Kiul's self control to stay where he had been standing.

"I, too, was bitten by the nightmare bug once...long ago...in my bed. It came in through the window and spoke to me. Asked for a new vessel with which to usher in a new world, town by town." The man's story already sounded ridiculous, but the clarity with which he spoke made him sound sane and aware of his words and actions; and that made it all the more disturbing. "It showed me things you would not believe...at least, not until I show you, too. You are not the first to come this way, nor the last. You see...I once set out to end it, too. Mastered several schools of magic for years, in hopes of making the nightmares stop."

The man took another menacing step forward, and despite his thin, feeble appearance, that time Kiul stepped back along with the two women. "Until I found the source...and found the truth. By eating the people's dreams, I gained real ultimate power...a power that can only either consume, or enhance. Augment. Just...like...me..."

The man thumbed his chest, motioning to the sutures over the place where his heart once lied. "It's an augmentation that requires only momentary pain, but allows one to become a part of this," he said while pointing to the bubbling green pool. "I saw a new world, one day...and I saw our former pass away. Vengeance-"

"Rrraaaa!"

"Aargh!"

"Eeeeiii!" squeaked Elizra as she clung to Yaromira so fiercely that the two women fell to the ground.

It all happened so fast that Kiul hit the ground at the same time as both a tall, dark figure jumping down from the trees as well as a severed arm. The angry roar to his right only added to the confusion.

Everything happened in slow motion. Bracing himself on one hand as he attempted to sit up, Kiul had a split second before the mess of brown fur covered in deep, glowing green cuts soared his way. The drooling, infected gums of a bear opened up just a few yards away and rapidly approached. Fangs and claws flashed as the beast leaped for him, giving Kiul time only to throw himself on top of Yaromira and Elizra protectively as his life flashed before his eyes.

The mass of black fur and metal clashed as a loud thud rang out into the night, and what appeared to be an armored elbow and forearm slammed into the bear's head and neck, jarring it to the ground roughly. The beast had only another second before a massive two handed sword crashed down, opening up its back in a mess of red, bleeding meat. The death groan was loud and clear, not even drowned out by the old man's pained screaming. Elizra was already scrambling to her feet before Kiul had quite figured out what was happening.

"Oh! Oh! I couldn't! I couldn't!" the worgen woman sobbed as she threw herself into Tyron's arms.

Kiul helped up Yaromira at the same time that Tyron practically cradled Elizra, who was rambling almost incoherently as the other married couple was reunited. What little fur was left exposed by his plate armor bore numerous cuts soaking his black fur a burgundy color, and his armor itself had a bunch of scratches and what even looked like a definite pierced hole on the back, but he was very much alive and in surprisingly good shape considering that, after the whole ordeal, he managed to quietly climb through the trees (despite weighing about 400 pounds) and cut off the old man's staff wielding limb and eviscerate a rabid bear in a matter of seconds.

Before their very eyes, the green puddle dried up. It didn't evaporate or even soak into the soil; it just gradually dissipated as the magician was disfigured. Without any explanation as to how the woods must have shifted again, Kiul heard the footsteps of the rest of the group approaching as he helped Yaromira stand up.

At the same time, the green eyed bear morphed into a disfigured, mutilated elf that he assumed to be Kirandros. Far beyond what even a professional healer such as Elizra could save, Kiul noticed how the elf's Druidic markings glowed a fel color as well; one more victim, however indirectly, of the curse. Cecilia stomped up to the bleeding, screaming magician, grabbing him by the hair and rolling him over such that his gross wound faced upward.

"Elizra: heal him now," Cecilia ordered in an unusually terse manner for dealing with her friends.

Everyone looked a little confused, especially the worgen couple, but the night elf only repeated her command.

"Death would be too kind for him," she muttered in clarification.

Uncomfortable, the group's healer looked to her husband before stepping away and examining the gushing wound. Reaching forward but looking away, she sealed the cut where the magician's entire arm had been cut off, saving him from a slow, painful death. When he saw the scornful look on Cecilia's face, Kiul knew that he would probably never hear the entirety of the old man's nonsensical explanation for his misdeeds. That notion was further confirmed when Cecilia gave a similarly terse command to her fiancé in elf language.

Crouching next to the magician as Cecilia stepped back and ushered the others away with her, Khujand contorted his features in concentration as fel runes glowed beneath his feet. As he held his hands out in front of him in a crushing motion, a red bolt of light shot down upon the man. The surface of the shadow hunter's body and even armor flowed with what looked like white electrical pulses, and skeletal apparitions rose out of the surface and into the magician's body. The electric hum of the voodoo magic accompanied a white cloud the same shade as the ghosts, and when it cleared, Khujand reached down and lifted a tiny, struggling being about the size of a walnut between his finger and thumb.

"You...shrunk him?" Yaromira asked.

The shadow hunter scowled at the tiny villain once more before stuffing him into a belt pouch, patting the pouch as though he had just stored a gold coin in it. "Tha alchemy lab manager at tha garrison said I can enter inside if it's for tha express purpose of sharin' research with tha Alliance scientists," he rumbled in a low voice.

The group fell silent save for Meatball, who found the prospect of the bad guy being used as an alchemy reagant hilarious. They all stood around silently as the wind whispered through the trees, basking in the ordeal finally having come to an end.

Kiul turned to his wife, who was still the leader of the group, as always. "What do we do now?" he asked. "How can we leave?"

Rather than answering herself, Yaromira turned to Tulaani, who had already shifted back into her normal form. "Can we consecrate this place?"

"We don't need to; I can already feel the curse slipping away," the shadow priestess answered. "By sunrise, I don't even expect these woods to be here. But follow me; I can cleanse a path locally as we work our way out."

The others slowly coalesced into formation again, weary from the experience but uplifted by the news that the curse was already fading. Tulaani swept her hand a single time, and already, the accursed trees before her receded into the ground almost without causing any noise.

"One way or another, we will make sure that the Light shines upon this village once more."


	8. The End

Yaromira rolled the walnuts around in her hand, popping a few in her mouth as she and Meatball rode down the old dirt road in the noontime sun. The gnoll reached his paw out innocently, and she shared a few with him. They were gobbled up almost instantaneously, and she couldn't help but laugh at how carefree he was. Even when a few local travelers passed them while going in the opposite direction, he didn't even bother to stop gnashing his jaws. The locals waved, likely recognizing the Steamwheedle Cartel uniform Yaromira wore along with Meatball's bruiser trappings.

They could already see the village up ahead, the humble houses of the farmers reflecting the sun's rays with their stained glass windows. The village had expanded since the last time she had visited a month before, and much of that expansion lied at both ends of the main dirt road. At the front, there were emissary tents for both major factions from Azeroth. A contingent from the local Alliance garrison had stationed a diplomat and a few guards there as a sign of goodwill to the locals and in response to a couple of sightings of Hellscream's forces in the region. Not to be outdone, the Horde had followed suit, and although they fraternized little there was also a stunning lack of hostility, as was the general case between the factions for the campaign on Draenor.

Yaromira waved to members of both factions as they rode past, always doing her best to keep good relations with all. As the representative of one of Azeroth's most active neutral organizations, she had to wear her best face at all times and leave her private membership in the Alliance at the tent whenever she suited up for work. An Orc grunt even chatted casually with the draenei farmer who lived at the front of the village - or did live at the front of the village, before the two consular tents had been set up. Yaromira couldn't help but smile at the polite interaction. A twinge of hope for what could be replicated back on Azeroth found its way into her mind as they rode beyond the first few houses and approached the communal longhouse. She and Kiul had purchased a villa in Ratchet through their company account, and would finish working off the last few payments very soon. It was as diverse a city as any other; perhaps one day, more of the planet she now called home would learn to live in peace. A thought of her two adventuring friends caused her to smile, not noticing the odd stares from local children. If a night elf could marry a jungle troll, she thought...

"Nice to see you back here, stranger."

The joke snapped Yaromira back to the present. Shaking her head clear, she looked down to see the village elder looking up. Quickly dismounting, Yaromira made sure to show the proper respect when greeting the older woman.

"It's nice to be back, actually," she beamed while dusting off her uniform. "They've told me so much about the development here, but I had to see it for myself."

The street bustled with activity as the local farmers returned from the fields; early to rise, early to rest, as they told her. More mercantile activity had begun after the infusion of gold coins minted on Azeroth, and the locals had solved many of the unemployment problems faced by their youth by selling traditional wares that could fetch inflated prices at the auction houses in major cities. It was a wonderful sight to see, even if this version of her home planet wasn't a part of her own timeline.

"Things really have improved since you all came to save our people," the elder said softly while leaning on her staff. "I shudder to think of what may have happened..."

"Then don't think about it!" Yaromira joked. "What's come to pass was meant to be."

"What's meant to be has come to pass," continued the elder, finishing the proverb.

Spying some young men and women helping each other with stacks of hand made, painted pottery, Yaromira felt the itch to inspect the other end of the village. "I really couldn't have expected things to turn out better myself."

"Hopefully, we'll have the ability to grow as a community now. You know farmers...most of us are averaging four or five children per family." The elder pointed to a work recruiter from a larger community at the longhouse with her staff. "We don't worry so much about finding jobs for them anymore."

"All the world's people, on every world, have a desire to connect with one another," Yaromira recited. She had explained her philosophy of life a hundred times, but she always got a little choked up every time. "Business is not simply greed; it is the primary force that makes such connections possible. That's the logic of the destiny of sentient beings: to know one another, and to benefit from working together. It is my hope that the process our organization helped facilitate will continue organically, not needing any active direction."

The elder's face softened at the explanation. There was a bit of wistfullness there, and Yaromira knew what was coming next. "For what it's worth, I can never thank you enough personally for what you did. Our cemetery now carries four more than it should, but it would have been much higher. I know that eventually, you will need to go back to the dimension from whence you came..."

"I know," Yaromira confirmed sadly.

"But until that time, I hope that we can expect to see you a little more often. You and that husband of yours have become a sort of local legend since that night."

"We will, I promise you that we will. Even if were stationed in other regions of the planet, we can always find the time to fly to the garrison on weekends." Yaromira pointed straight south, in the direction of the Alliance garrison that had the area's only flight point. "It's just a two hour ride after that."

The elder nodded solemnly, and Yaromira knew that it would be difficult. But she also knew that she had to come back as much as she could before leaving. After a few more minutes of light chatting, she bid the elder a temporary farewell, mounting up again to continue her survey of the village.

In spite of lacking the bustle of construction seen at the garrisons and the larger local settlements, the amount of activity had increased dramatically. A single way station had been built on the outskirts of the east end of the village, and merchants both buying and selling added a diverse flair to the rustic, authentic village. Flightless arakkoa - and even a single flying one accompanying them - negotiated in a dozen different language as their people often tended to do. Local Draenor orcs rode in on their wolves to sell metal ore, and at least one botani mingled with a group of fascinated farmers.

It was a lovely sight to see, and it only further confirmed many of Yaromira's core beliefs about harmony and understanding. Passing the last of the village houses on the north end, she and Meatball surveyed some of the skinning work at a hunter camp set up in cooperation between locals and orcs, waving to the cross eyed young man that sort of looked like her husband but not really. Eventually, they reached what had been the site of the once accursed woods, which had mysteriously disappeared the morning following the harrowing ordeal more than a month ago, just as Soulbinder Tulaani had promised.

The entire area was flat like the rest of the grassland, and an open air workshop with a tin roof occupied half of the space. The other half was taken up by a combination gemstone strip mine and a clay pit, and numerous young men from the village worked hard hauling the moldable mud in buckets while the young women furiously spun pottery in the workshop. It was considered one of the crowning achievements of the local community, and had driven much of its economic development since its completion just a week before. Even without a flight point or regular postal service - yet - the merchants had taken only a day to arrive once word spread of the trading opportunities.

Leaving the dirt road for a few moments, Yaromira dismounted again, as did her gnoll bodyguard. Leaving the talbuks at the road, they strode into the grassland that had been a woodland for one terrifying week. The sounds of the violence and the horrid creatures left her dreams quickly, leaving behind memories of the valiant efforts of the team she and Kiul had assembled. Her hoof steps made light, pleasant noises on the grass as she reached the point solely from memory. If anything, she would have to come back for this spot as often as she could before leaving this timeline for good.

Kneeling down, Yaromira whispered a little prayer over the bed of ice blue roses that were still as vibrant and healthy as the night they had sprouted up. Their accursed surroundings had disappeared along with the sadly corrupted healer who grew them. And yet, even after the lifting of the curse, the flowers remained. Although she knew little of Druidic magic, she had a feeling they would remain for a long time.

Silky to the touch, Yaromira had to fight the urge to pluck one for herself. As much as she wished to retain something connected to the brave woman who had laid down her second life for the sake of innocent villagers she knew nothing about, it felt proper to leave the rose bed as it was. Instead, Yaromira clutched the gold necklace and looked at the photo inside as a reminder. Some time, some day, she would travel to that misty continent when back on Azeroth and fulfil her promise. Until then, the necklace would be a fine reminder lest she ever forget the duty she had sworn to fulfill.

Minutes passed before Yaromira felt satisfied in the confirmation that the mark remained. What she did with the cartel was far more than business. Via any means necessary, she would do her part to help the various peoples and races to know one another. She had no desire greater than that.

Rising finally, she turned to Meatball. "That's enough," she sighed in relief. "I just needed to see. But...we can go now." She smiled a genuine smile, knowing there was a wisdom behind all things. "We always have more work to do."

Her comedic bodyguard nodded and followed her back to the talbuks. Mounting up once more, they picked up the pace as they headed back to the longhouse. Yaromira still had to discuss the establishment of a post office and money changer at the village, always mindful of opportunities for connections she could forge. The bustle of activity continued, and her heart fluttered knowing that it would now do so even without her presence. Town by town, she and Kiul would do their best to make a difference.


End file.
